“No pain, no gain.” Pain is temporary”, “Pain is weakness leaving the body” We have all heard these but are they true? What if the pain is helping to prevent injury? Knowing the difference between pain and being uncomfortable can also be the difference between an injury that side tracks you for weeks/months and finally making gains in your fitness that you have always wanted.

Let’s start to break this down: Pain is a basic bodily sensation induced by a noxious stimulus, received by naked nerve endings, characterized by very specific physical discomfort (such as pricking, throbbing, or aching).It’s often very centralized and specific in location, you can point to it with one finger. It is your body’s way of saying “STOP! Something is wrong...this is not good”. Often if we ignore this signal and continue to keep going injury will occur.

Now let’s talk about being uncomfortable: it’s something you can’t pin-point location wise, it is a general feeling, it’s not sharp but dull. Being uncomfortable is not a bad thing mentally or physically. Being comfortable being uncomfortable will take you where you want to go with both your health and fitness goals, to another level!

Next time you are pushing yourself in a workout if you feel pain (centralized, specific location, immediate, sharp) listen to that shit! Your body is telling you, “Something is wrong, I’m about to break...hold off” but if you feel uncomfortable (you can’t centralize the feeling or specific location, dull, slow onset) push through that shit. That uncomfortable feeling is temporary, that is what you need to push through to get stronger, get to the next level!