No pain, no gain right? But there’s a huge difference between the feel the burn pain and actual pain.

Pain is the body sending signals to protect itself, and pushing through the wrong kind of pain is asking for trouble. Growing up, if I got hurt or sick, my parents were like “You’re fine, put a bandaid on it!” So I learned to ignore the pain and suck it up! This lead to YEARS of living with Celiac and having no idea, knee tendinitis, a broken hand that I never went in for that now does weird things… The list goes on! SO how do you tell the difference between good and bad pain?

-Good pain happens at the muscle, bad pain usually occurs around a joint. Say you were doing squats, if your quads are burning that’s good! But if you’re knee is hurting you probably need to check your form.

-Good pain should go away, bad pain lingers. Soreness from a workout shouldn’t last for more than 3 days

-Good pain should not have any swelling. Period.

-Good pain does not get worse! If your pain is increasing, you need to pay attention and find out why.

People often get frustrated with pain and aren’t patient enough to fully recover, so they choose to push through it anyways. Don’t be that person!! There is ALWAYS a way to work around pain and get good workouts in without making things worse. You just have to get a little creative.