Meet my friend: Pain

Someone I know has the following advice for exercising, especially when you're getting started and don't know your limits: Stop comes before ow.

It's good advice, as it goes, but imprecise.  Ow comes at different points for different people and, in this case, "Ow" is not the beginning of pain, but a tenuously-defined point after the pain starts and before you're ripping yourself to shreds.

I have a high pain threshold, in general.  This is partly because I'm used to it as a constant (q.v. crappy joints), and partly because, when things are bad and I'm whingeing, I have some historical doozies to call back on to say: it's not as painful as [insert horrific incident], just put it away in the pain cupboard.

This management technique is good for pain when you know it'll end at some point, e.g. simple injury, recovering from surgery, headache when the source is known, migraine (although that's only minimally good when your headspace for putting pain is filled with orgulous, rolling, foggy banks of sickening pain).  However, it's a bit less useful for when the pain is scary because its source (and duration) is unknown. Then it becomes as tiring as someone constantly jumping out at random and shouting "Boo!" - you become hyper-vigilant to the point of paranoia, cringing before it even hits...

One of the things that's wrong with my poor knees is, apparently, some kind of hyperalgaesia.  Something went wrong with my ability to work out what's an ignorable amount of pain in that area and it all feels frightening and alien.  When I haven't done my exercises for a while (or eat the wrong food, or do too much standing without preparation), I go back to the place where I can't sleep for the discomfort, which sucks for two reasons, one of which being that sleep deprivation makes you more sensitive to pain.

One of the two useful things the NHS physio gave me (the other being insoles to correct pronation) was advice to touch my knees (and the areas around them) as much as possible with different kinds of pressures and textures, to basically bring up their sensation threshold.  Resting them and avoiding using them was only making them flabby and over-sensitive, basically.  Imagine that puffy rawness of paler skin out from under a plaster and breathing air for the first time in ages.  Like that.

Which brings us on to the key bit - the NHS physios told me to "do [these gentle exercises] and stop when it hurts."  The private physio told me to "do these more difficult exercises and push through the pain - your body has expectations and you need to shift them."  [This last is a contraction and paraphrase.]

Now, that's not to say that she was keen on me running around and breaking myself.  This is the woman who laughed heartily at me coming in with a busted neck, the pain of which had seemed to come on with a sneeze, but had actually been caused, she worked out, by me trying standing on my head the previous evening.  I am too heavy to stand on my head with the current parlous state of my muscles.  In this case, stop should have come way before ow.

Until very recently, I've been neglecting to stretch out properly after exercising.  I'm not entirely sure why this is.  Sometimes I'm rushing for a bus to get home, but... well... maybe I'm not taking it all seriously enough.  (Also, when the endorphins are rushing around, you think you're fine and don't need to stretch, just change, go home, and eat ALL THE PASTA.)  So I've been hurting like a bastard the following day, and that's been my measure of "congratulations: you did exercise". I used to call this "the smug fire of self-induced pain".

Yeah, not so clever.

Last night I achieved a mini-goal: front (as opposed to side-; I'm building up to that) plank held for 60 seconds.  I squeaked in victory and collapsed on the mat, all glowy.  Last night, after upping my sets to 4 instead of 3, I stretched properly, and today: yes, I feel achey, but to the degree that feels like "good workout last night" not the "holy crap, my left shoulder's so tight I've got pins and needles running down my arm" sensation I've been getting that makes me think I should see my physio.

Turns out Pain's one of those friends - you don't seek him out because he can be very draining company but, if he happens to come with the territory, you should neither avoid nor ignore him - he always speaks the truth, even though he sometimes exaggerates. Pain's part of healing, after all, and I need to break my muscles just enough to build them through healing, and pain's part of that.

Conversely, Injury's a wazzock and should be avoided if at all possible.

I guess what I'm saying is: test your limits constantly by artfully nudging beyond the ones you want to change. And have a map for what the steps are between the landmarks.  Pain is part of this - listen to him and he'll be a good friend in unfamiliar territory. And, for goodness' sake, save painkillers for emergencies!