How to figure out whether discomfort is part of training, a sign to adjust, or a reason to stop and get help.
Core thesis
Alright, if you have made it to 40 and beyond, you are most certainly aware of aches and pains in your body. I have good news for you: while pain after 40 should not be ignored, it also does not automatically indicate that you are screwed.
The important part is that you need to learn to interpret the pain response to your actions: location, intensity, pain patterns, how it behaves the next day, whether it changes with movement, and whether it keeps returning under the same circumstances.
So, don’t be stupid and just push through, but also don’t be scared of every strange and odd sensation.
1. The Common Adult Problem
One year, I ran the Marine Corps Baby Ultra Marathon (50K), which is always the last weekend of October, and I was signed up for another 50K ultra on trails in eastern North Carolina the following January. I think it was the last weekend as well.
I thought I had enough time to recover between the ultras, and at first glance, all seemed to go pretty well.
However, I had some slight nagging sensations in the area of my left front knee near the patellar tendon, but they were minor.
Due to being extremely driven, goal-oriented, stubborn, and an idiot, I decided to ignore it…yes, don’t judge!
Long story short, the second race was on sandy soil, and I really fucked up both patellar tendons and had to deal with it for over a year.
Why did it take that long to recover?
The reasons are simple if I am being honest: I did not want it to be true. I did not want to have to back off, which eventually led to me having to quit running for about a six-week period.
If I had reduced mileage more initially, switched over to run-walking, used different ground to run on, and listened to my body better, I probably would have recovered faster. Instead, I had to stop completely because even walking became an issue.
Tendon issues can linger. I had to rest and then very gradually rebuild. Total recovery time was 18 months until I was back to full training load and at the performance levels I had achieved prior to the race.
What this does not tell you is that, if I had listened to my own advice, I would not have taken that long and would never have had to play catch-up. Despite recovering, I still lost multiple months that could have been spent pushing performance instead of focusing on recovery.
In this example, you find two idiots, and both are me, which is kind of sad and funny at the same time!
Idiot No. 1 kept pushing despite knowing that pulling out of the race and reducing volume just a little could have prevented this.
Idiot No. 2, also me, decided initially that after a rest break, I could basically go back to where I was prior, or just make a minor volume adjustment and return relatively quickly.
Both assumptions were wrong. So instead of dealing with a relatively short recovery, it took me much longer…don’t be the ME that I was back then.
Don’t ignore the pain until your body tells you to fuck off!
Also, don’t panic, stop everything, and then, once the pain stops, jump quickly back to full load just to end up injured again.
In order to come back stronger and make the right decision, you need to be able to differentiate pain sensations.
2. Pain is information, not automatically a diagnosis
Sometimes it seems hard to differentiate between pain and, well, pain. It is really bizarre at times.
When I ask my clients, “Do you have pain?” the answers can range from:
No!
No idea!
I feel something?
Just a little!?
To OMG yes, this is painful!
So let’s take this apart a little bit more.
It is important for you to distinguish between the different sensations that you might experience:
- Discomfort during effort — it is getting harder. You might feel a burning sensation in the muscle belly, fatigue, and a kind of acidic feeling.
- Soreness from training — this is common 24–48 hours after training, especially if it is a new regimen, more intense, or a higher volume. Regular muscle soreness is an achiness that can become pretty intense in the muscle itself.
- Stiffness from underuse/overuse — if you have not moved in a while—days, weeks, months—you can find yourself stiffer, almost like it takes a while to loosen up. Similarly, this can happen when muscles are tired from exhaustion and are still recovering.
- Recurring pain patterns — do you experience pain in similar situations, like going down the stairs, running up or down hills, squatting beyond a certain point, etc.? Those can give us information about the capacity of the tissue in that area.
- Is the pain sharp or worsening? — a sharp pain could indicate an acute injury. Worsening pain can be an indicator that your current activity is aggravating an existing situation.
Once you have a better idea of what sensation you are feeling, you can make a more objective decision about the right course of action instead of overreacting or negotiating with it by “testing if it is really that bad,” like a lot of athletes like to do.
I also want you to have a tool at your disposal to help you decide whether to continue with your activity or abandon it like a politician’s promise.
That leads us to the traffic light system.
3. The traffic light system
The traffic light system is a decision-making and monitoring framework, not a diagnostic tool!
Before we dive into this, we probably want to differentiate between soreness and pain.
Soreness is usually in a broader area, it is muscle-based, and it shows up after unfamiliar work, higher loads, higher volume, etc. It generally improves over the course of days and is usually gone or tremendously better after about 3–4 days. Unless the soreness is extremely high, it barely changes your movement.
More concerning is pain that feels joint-, tendon-, or bone-like. The pain quality can vary and sometimes be dull or sharp, so that alone is not a clear indicator. It frequently has a tendency to worsen under load. It often changes your movement pattern and shows up under similar conditions—walking stairs, hill running, squats, etc.
At times, it also does not respond to reasonable modifications.
Green light: usually okay to continue
Green-light symptoms can include:
- mild muscle soreness
- general stiffness that improves with warm-up
- effort discomfort that does not change movement
- no worsening later that day or the next morning
- symptoms that stay low and predictable
Action:
Keep training, but monitor.
You notice that symptoms are mild at worst, improve with the activity, are not getting worse, and/or stay barely noticeable even at the end of the activity.
Having green-light discomfort is a sign that you tolerate the current load and are still operating within your body’s capacity. Progress your training carefully and monitor discomfort to make sure it does not become more concerning than regular soreness.
Yellow light: modify
This is when things become a little bit more complicated. You finish lifting and your shoulder hurts for several hours afterward. A run you completed leads to issues with the patellar tendon for a day or so.
Examples:
- discomfort that increases during the session
- pain that shows up repeatedly in the same exercise or mileage range
- new or increased stiffness the next morning associated with the problem, or a recurring pattern other than regular muscle soreness
- pain that does not stop you but clearly changes the quality of movement
- symptoms that improve when load, range, speed, or volume is reduced
Action:
Modify the dose. Reduce load, range, speed, volume, hills, intensity, or frequency.
Here, more action has to be taken. Let’s take the example from above!
You notice that after shoulder presses, your shoulder hurts for a couple of hours, maybe even a day or two. The next time you lift weights, you make modifications to the exercise or find a temporary replacement that trains the same muscle group, if possible, and add some additional exercises for a while that generally help with shoulder pain and stability.
Or, in the case of the runner, you notice that your knee pain appears after running 4+ miles. You reduce the mileage to 3–4 miles and make sure you work on other things like getting enough sleep, fueling your training properly with your nutrition, and starting strength training to help with your overall capacity.
But what if the pain is worse? The red-light district is here—and not the one where people go to enjoy themselves.
Red light: stop and get assessed
If you have one of the examples below, things are getting real, really fast, and not taking action can lead to prolonged recovery times or worse injuries.
Sharp, sudden pain that does not get better after a couple of days could indicate an acute injury and warrant going to the doc. Same goes for sudden swelling or the other symptoms listed below.
Examples:
- swelling
- pain that changes gait
- numbness, tingling, or weakness—while temporary symptoms can be benign, new, persistent, or progressive symptoms, especially with movement changes, indicate that you should get it checked out
- persistent, unrelenting night pain that has nothing to do with position or activity, or that is accompanied by other concerning symptoms—not just because you are sore
- pain after a fall or traumatic event
- worsening symptoms over multiple sessions
- new, recurring symptoms in an area with a history of stress fracture, tendon rupture, surgery, or recurring injury
- pain that keeps returning despite modifications
Action:
Stop guessing. Get help.
No, seriously…this is where “DON’T BE AN IDIOT!!!!” comes into play. You want to talk to someone who can assess the situation and help you make a decision on how to proceed from here.
Another tool that can help you is the 24-hour rule.
4. The 24-hour rule
Look at your training like a professional would. A professional cannot simply ignore an injury unless they seriously want to sabotage their career.
So ask yourself:
- How did it feel during training?
- How did it feel later that day?
- How did it feel the next morning?
This works for:
- running
- squats
- deadlifts
- lunges
- shoulder pressing
- tennis
- pickleball
- hiking
- HIIT classes
Your body’s response after the workout often tells you more than your ego did during the workout.
I am a human being, not just a trainer. I have an ego, and I don’t always want to listen to my body either. Using the 24-hour rule can help us take a step back and look at our bodies in a more neutral light. If you have to make changes, it is not a big deal and is often temporary.
5. Modification is not failure
Sometimes people quit an exercise altogether when all they really need to do is modify it.
That will help you maintain your fitness, or even push it further, while simply adapting to your body’s current capacity and situation.
Modification is not quitting, it is using your brain!!!
These are just a few of the modifications that can be made:
- reduce weight
- reduce range of motion
- slow tempo
- switch exercise
- reduce running intensity
- remove hills
- use run-walk
- reduce volume
- increase rest between sessions
- train around the irritated area
We all know you are tough, no need to prove it. The goal is to avoid a full-blown problem by being smart and letting your body adapt to what you ask of it.
Here is what not to do!
6. The biggest mistake: doing the same thing again
Okay folks, ladies and gentlemen, this goes back to the “DON’T BE AN IDIOT!” part.
If you have pain at mile 4, take a rest, try again, and chances are high the pain shows up again at mile 4.
Same for the shoulder. If you have pain benching heavy, take a break, come back, and guess what? The pain is back.
Why does that happen? There could be several reasons, like structural issues, or it could be your body trying to tell you that it did not have the capacity to do what you asked it to do.
While rest can settle symptoms or help with recovery, it does not increase capacity without proper progressive loading. Without load, capacity during prolonged rest can decrease due to lack of stimulation.
Rest helps you heal, it does not build capacity.
Go at it gradually, make the modifications above, and help your body adapt.
That is not bad luck.
If your body keeps giving you the same answer, maybe stop asking the same damn question.
7. What to do this week
This one works well for me because I have a tendency to ignore shit until it gets bad myself.
The reality is that my emotional well-being is closely tied to my performance, for better or worse. I am fairly certain I am not the only one here.
So this framework below helps me make better decisions than simply ignoring signals that my body sends me.
If you have discomfort or pain with one of your activities, go through the following questions:
- What activity triggers it?
- At what point does it show up?
- Does it improve, stay the same, or worsen during the session?
- How does it feel later that day?
- How does it feel the next morning?
- What happens if load, speed, range, or volume is reduced?
- Does the same pattern keep repeating?
Once you have all of this information, you can make a better decision about whether you need help!
This is where coaching and post-rehab programming can matter, helping you use the right intensity and volume at the right time. Guessing gets old, especially when it keeps producing the same results.
8. Takeaway
Alright folks, to put a bow on this nice and tidy:
Pain is not a signal for you to drop everything, lie down on the couch, eat chocolate bonbons, and cry over spilled milk.
It also is not permission to overrule the sensation and just push through with the old motto, “What does not kill you makes you stronger.” We all know that is BS.
Pain is information that needs to get processed.
You now have the tools to take a more objective look at what you are feeling and put it into perspective. You can then decide whether you are better off resting a little and gradually rebuilding, whether you just need to pull back a little, or whether you can go full steam ahead.
