How to Exercise When in Pain

Are you in pain? Inflamed? Stiff? Aching? 

Do you know you need to exercise but it's painful to even think about. Or you haven't exercised forever for fear of making it worse?

The truth is:

Sometimes,  the very thing we dread doing is the very thing we must be doing.

In this letter, I will share with you  how to exercise when the body is in pain. Ready to dive in right away?

Step 1. Do you know why your body is in pain? The most important step is to discover the source of pain. Once you determine you can start to move your body, here are some steps you can start with.

1. Move every day within your capabilities. Since we are talking about movement, consider that movement is the very thing that often will help you feel less pain. 
2. Understand which foods are anti-inflammatory and begin to include them in your diet.  

Look what Stephanie says:

"Had an awesome low- impact workout today with Nadya. They are predicting snow tomorrow here in Maine and the barometric pressure has dropped today. When this happens my arthritis kicks up a notch and gives me pain and stiffness. However I made a promise to myself I work out everyday with some kind of movement. Tuned in for a challenging low impact aerobic workout with Nadya. I entered in the session with pain but followed the exercises and left the session feeling no pain! Still in no pain two hours later! Now that is a win!" 

So friends, please move every day. It might not be something you want to do but you will feel better.

Step 2. Build your customized program. Here are the steps:

2.1. Make sure you given a green light to exercise by your doctor.

2.2. Assess your readiness. 

2.2.1. Be aware of  your previous operations, injuries, and surgeries that may effect ways you can exercise safely. 

2.2.2. What are compensations in your body's form that provoke misalignment that may lead to pain?

2.3. What you can and cannot do. What modifications does your body need? 

2.3.1. Corrective exercises will help realign the body and strengthen weak muscles. 

2.3.2. Start slow and upgrade. 

For example,  if you have major pain in your knees, squats may not be best. Start with seated leg lifts (leg extensions) to strengthen the muscles around knees. 

In any case, start working on balance. Body weight functional exercises are optimal. 

2.4. Keep in mind contraindications from your doctor or other medical professionals.

Step 3. Just do it.  This can be the hardest step but it is crucially important. It's so mentally challenging to stay in the process because during the first stage of a habit change (introductory and resistance phase), the brain will want to talk you out of it. That's where most of us give up and quit. 

But if we ask for help; ask a coach, ask a buddy, team up with someone and stay in process, you may enjoy the success as Ursula did.

"I started to work with Nadya because I had so much trouble with my back. It would often go into spasm from sitting for 12-14 hour days in the office. Its only been a month, but I find Nadya's workouts are fun and beautiful to do. I feel like she has eased me into it in an enjoyable and gentle way. I was speaking with my father and he asked me how I was doing. When I thought about it I realized that after only a month I was not feeling the back pain like before and I felt stronger. My hip hasn't gone out of alignment in a month. It does feel different. I also noticed that I am getting some muscle definition in my back." 

Friends, pain can easily shake us out of consistency and even the first step toward regular exercise.  But movement may be the very thing that will help us reduce aches and pains. 

Move. Build your customized program. And, just do it.

Are you in pain? Inflamed? Stiff? Aching? 

Do you know you need to exercise but it's painful to even think about. Or you haven't exercised forever for fear of making it worse?

The truth is:

Sometimes,  the very thing we dread doing is the very thing we must be doing.

In this letter, I will share with you  how to exercise when the body is in pain. Ready to dive in right away?

If you'd rather listen, hop over the blog post. 

Step 1. Do you know why your body is in pain? The most important step is to discover the source of pain. Once you determine you can start to move your body, here are some steps you can start with.

1. Move every day within your capabilities. Since we are talking about movement, consider that movement is the very thing that often will help you feel less pain. 
2. Understand which foods are anti-inflammatory and begin to include them in your diet.  

Look what Stephanie says:

"Had an awesome low- impact workout today with Nadya. They are predicting snow tomorrow here in Maine and the barometric pressure has dropped today. When this happens my arthritis kicks up a notch and gives me pain and stiffness. However I made a promise to myself I work out everyday with some kind of movement. Tuned in for a challenging low impact aerobic workout with Nadya. I entered in the session with pain but followed the exercises and left the session feeling no pain! Still in no pain two hours later! Now that is a win!" 

So friends, please move every day. It might not be something you want to do but you will feel better.

Step 2. Build your customized program. Here are the steps:

2.1. Make sure you given a green light to exercise by your doctor.

2.2. Assess your readiness. 

2.2.1. Be aware of  your previous operations, injuries, and surgeries that may effect ways you can exercise safely. 

2.2.2. What are compensations in your body's form that provoke misalignment that may lead to pain?

2.3. What you can and cannot do. What modifications does your body need? 

2.3.1. Corrective exercises will help realign the body and strengthen weak muscles. 

2.3.2. Start slow and upgrade. 

For example,  if you have major pain in your knees, squats may not be best. Start with seated leg lifts (leg extensions) to strengthen the muscles around knees. 

In any case, start working on balance. Body weight functional exercises are optimal. 

2.4. Keep in mind contraindications from your doctor or other medical professionals.

Step 3. Just do it.  This can be the hardest step but it is crucially important. It's so mentally challenging to stay in the process because during the first stage of a habit change (introductory and resistance phase), the brain will want to talk you out of it. That's where most of us give up and quit. 

But if we ask for help; ask a coach, ask a buddy, team up with someone and stay in process, you may enjoy the success as Ursula did.

"I started to work with Nadya because I had so much trouble with my back. It would often go into spasm from sitting for 12-14 hour days in the office. Its only been a month, but I find Nadya's workouts are fun and beautiful to do. I feel like she has eased me into it in an enjoyable and gentle way. I was speaking with my father and he asked me how I was doing. When I thought about it I realized that after only a month I was not feeling the back pain like before and I felt stronger. My hip hasn't gone out of alignment in a month. It does feel different. I also noticed that I am getting some muscle definition in my back." 

Friends, pain can easily shake us out of consistency and even the first step toward regular exercise.  But movement may be the very thing that will help us reduce aches and pains. 

Move. Build your customized program. And, just do it.

What's next? 

If you want to go over these steps wtih me, schedule your free discovery call with me OR

start by reflecting and creating action steps during my free upcoming webinar Three Pillars of Health - From Pain to Strength, from Strength to Power (June 9th, 11:30 AM CST; no replay) OR

Join our club and hop into the training Safe Exercise (June 15th, 9:30 AM CST; it will be recorded).

Video Transcript

Hello, my name is Nadia Taj who is coaching by Nadia and I help you build strength and balance through the transformation of your mindset, nutrition, and fitness of one habit at a time. How to exercise when in pain, what a topic, what a topic, usually when we're in pain we don't want to think about, well, we're thinking about exercising but we just don't even want to start, don't feel like it because it hurts already. And then we're feeling like when we start exercising it's going to hurt even more.

What do we do? And today we're going to talk about the three steps. We're going to talk about what is the source of pain, how to build a plan, and how to keep the plan going. So let's jump into it real quick. Inflammation, arthritis, have an exercise for a long time, have a sitting lifestyle, body feel stiff, body hurts and scared even to start. So I wonder who here who is listening actually is experiencing something like that. So this conversation is for you. Short, let's dive real quick into three elements and of course each element can be covered

much, much, much more. But let's see what's possible to cover in this five minutes, five minutes. Step number one, I'm going to call it be real. Let's be real. Pain is real, it's hard to exercise when it's painful, but also let's be real. Movement might be the key to help you move from pain to strength. Movement is life, body needs movement. So honestly, just move every day. We are not even talking about exercise and we're just talking about moving your body.

In fact, I'm going to give you an example. A couple of examples, one of them came to my mind when I was thinking about it. Stephanie, when she just started, her whole thing was just the body is on flame, she's in pain, but she was making herself to join our fitness classes, just gentle fusion flow, 20 minutes gentle movement. She felt better after she finished the exercise. The body feels better when you move your body. And in fact, even though it hurts, I'm thinking about other members of ours.

When she was consistent month after month after month, her body was strong enough to be able to do things she wasn't able to do before. For example, walking upstairs three times. For some of us, it is the celebration because we weren't able to do it before. So let's be real. Step number one in step number one of being real. Number one, what is actual source of pain? What is the health condition that is causing our pain, inflammation, stiffness? And of course, that requires a deeper conversation, but for the sake of just stepping back and

looking as the whole bird view eye, I keep refusing to say that because I never know how to say bird view eye or bird eye view, I just say both. So what is the health condition that is causing pain? Number two, what are your goals? If you start exercising, what do you want to achieve? What are you able to do that you can't do right now? Okay. All right. So we talked about being real and knowing the source of your pain and knowing what exactly you want to achieve, your goals, your why.

So step number two, we talk about, okay, now let's build a customized plan. And I specifically say here, customized plan. Like if you go online and you Google workouts, I guarantee you in those workouts, you will see the things you're not supposed to be doing. So please consult with the professionals, schedule your consultation with me. I call it 15 minute discovery call where we can decide what will be the customized plan or maybe it's a deep dive call if you want to spend more time on that.

But in this customized plan, what we're going to look at, first of all, again, let's just start with moving your body every day. And then let's decide on what you can, what you cannot do, what modifications you need to do, and there are any contraindications of certain things during the exercise that you're not needed right now. Meanwhile, move every day and engage your body in some kind of resistance training or weight training. Start with your own body weight.

In fact, that's why I designed the five day movement challenge where we started helping the muscles that need help the most. Still be very careful and gentle with that. We have fusion flow, 20 minute, simple body move. Actually, we're just to get up and move your body. OK, so step number one, be real. Know the source of pain, know your goals and why. Step number two, build customized plan, move your body every day. Know what you can, cannot do, modifications, contraindications.

OK. And three, that's the most difficult step. Guess which one it is? Following the plan. Step number three is keep following your plan. It is so hard because the first level of heavy change is resistance. It is different. Your brain doesn't like it. Your body is not used to it yet until you start noticing that the body is liking the benefit. It will be very discouraging, dispensational. You're going to try to talk yourself out of it, so other people too. Because they are not used to you yet.

Being this way, just sticking with the plan, following the plan. And knowing that it's going to be really, really challenging to stick with the plan for at least first month. And how you stick to the plan, you do two things. I like the numbers. I like simple numbers. No more than three. But two things, number one, create your own self-accomptability. Put alarm o'clock or write sticky notes in front of you. Do something to remind yourself why in the world you started this.

Put your why in front of you, your vision board. But the number two here actually is the key folks. Put yourself in the community of people who are already doing what you know you need to be doing. We're going to do it together. Whether you hire a coach, being with a friend, being in our club where your desired behavior is already a norm in that community. I guarantee you, you succeed. The success rate lifts up to 60 to 80%. I encourage you not to do it alone.

All right, to summarize, how to exercise when in pain. Be real. Pain is real. Know the source. Know your why. Know your goals. Build customized plan. Move every day. Know what you cannot do, modifications, contraindications. Number three, follow the plan by doing two things. Be accountable to yourself and put yourself in the community of like-minded people. Or just schedule a 15-minute discovery call with me and let's see, let's help you with your next step forward. Before you go, let me know what was the appreciation from this conversation. Maybe you already have the next step and I'll see you in the community.