There's a very big chance that you have already heard of the phrase "no pain no gain".
It's very likely that you have uttered those words a few times yourself.
But what does the phrase really mean? When and how did that phrase came to being? Does it mean that you only gain muscle and get stronger if you feel pain? And does it mean that you are not doing an effective workout if you don't feel any pain at all? Does all pain lead to muscle growth? Well, the phrase was popularized by actress Jane Fonda who, back in the early 80s, began to produce a series of aerobics workout videos.
In her videos, Fonda uses the phrase "no pain, no gain" (along with "feel the burn") as catchphrases to describe an effective workout.
The phrase eventually got adopted by the bodybuilding community and has been used ever since to express the belief that people who avoid pain will never gain large solid muscles.
Well, obviously, "no pain, no gain" does not apply to joint pain.
Joint pain is never good.
Pain is your body's alarm system and you need to listen to it.
If you are feeling any pain in your joints, it's a sure sign that there is something wrong.
It could mean that your in an improper form, it could also mean that there is something wrong with the joint in question, among other things.
Having that said, if you feel pain in your joint(s) while doing your workout you need to stop what you are dong immediately and try a different grip.
For example, if you are using an underhand grip, try doing an overhand grip.
You can also try to change the angle of your elbows like using a wider or narrower grip that what you are currently doing.
What I'm saying here basically is if you are experiencing any pain in your joint(s), you must right away try to find out if there's any way at all for you to perform a particular workout without experiencing any joint pain.
If changing your position/form does not get rid of the problem, you may have to reduce the weight that you are using/lifting and compensate by doing a higher number of repetitions.
If nothing works, then it's time that you go see a doctor and have him/her find out what is actually causing the pain and fix it if that's at all possible.
So, keep in mind that pain in the joints is always bad.
And it's not just joint pains.
Although it's very natural for our muscles to feel sore after an intense workout, you should bear in mind that not all muscular pains are good.
Muscle pain that is sharp, sudden, or one that occurs as a jolt of pain is most likely a sign that serious injury has occurred.
Muscle tears and separations typically cause this kind of pain and these things are not good.
It could take months to recover from something like this.
Obviously, this is not the pain we are talking about when we say "no pain, no gain".
If you feel this kind of pain, you need to immediately stop what you are doing and it's best if you have somebody run and get you a bag of ice you can use for an ice pack, at least until you get to a doctor.
Do not believe that pain when lifting only stops wimps.
An advanced bodybuilder understands his/her body very well and is capable of distinguishing between good pain and bad pain.
So, what kind of pain is good? Before I get into that, I would just like to clarify that there's never been any research that has proven that pain is required to get bigger or stronger.
In fact, many people get bigger and stronger without ever getting soar.
So, if you are not getting soar after your workout, don't despair.
Having said that, the most intense workouts cause the most soreness and workout intensity is definitely correlated with muscle mass and strength gains.
So, this can be a very good thing.
Now, going back to the good kind of pain, the first kind of good muscle pain occurs during the workout itself about three quarters of the way through a set.
It starts as a slow burn, and then with each subsequent rep the pain gets a little more intense.
And at the end of the set you feel like you're going to die.
This pain is caused by lactic acid build up and it's not that lactic acid is good in itself, but it's an indicator that your focus is excellent and that you are pushing hard enough to cause muscle growth.
The second kind of good muscle pain is the late onset muscle soreness.
This is the pain that you feel on your muscles a couple of days after working out.
This is highly desirable and sought after by bodybuilders.
It's the reason why bodybuilders take the elevator rather than the stairs after a heavy leg workout.
If you've done some really intense leg workout then you probably know what I'm talking about.
Your quads and other leg muscles are so sore that when you bend your knees it feels as if your legs are going to collapse.
When you workout with sufficient intensity, it causes micro tears in your muscles which your body then has to repair.
During this repair process the muscles get sore.
It can take a day or two before you start feeling the pain and it could take up to a week for the repairs to be complete depending on the intensity of your workout.
This muscle soreness is a good indicator of a good workout intensity.
The soreness that you feel is a sign that your muscle are being rebuilt bigger and stronger.
By the way, that soreness should also remind you to keep your nutrition strict and that you should eat small well-balanced meals every two to three hours to give your body the building blocks it needs to rebuild your muscles.
If you don't provide your body with the nutrients it needs to build muscle then you are not going to get bigger muscles, no matter how intense your workout is.
But like what I said earlier, if you don't feel sore after your workout, it doesn't mean that you didn't have an effective workout session.
Some muscles just don't seem to get sore, typically the calves and shoulders.
Now, keep in mind that you have to wait for the soreness to go away before you go back to working out again.
If you workout while still feeling sore, there is no way that you can generate the intensity required to gain more muscle.
Now, if pain is not a reliable indicator of an effective workout, how can you measure success? Tape measures and weighing scales are no good here since the amount of muscle you gain each time you workout is very small that it's not going to show up in those.
To give you a better picture, you can gain only about 5 to 10 pounds in a year (if you workout and watch your diet religiously).
Now try computing for how much muscle you are gaining for each day of the year by dividing those 5 to 10 pounds by 365.
The most effective way to track your success is to keep a log book where you can record the weights that you are lifting and the exercises that you are doing and how many reps you are doing.
Now if you see after a month that you are doing a couple more reps than you did when you started, that means you're getting stronger.
If you've increased the weight you're lifting, that means you are getting stronger.
So, if you are getting stronger, that's a sure sign that your workouts are effective.
And if you are getting stronger, that's a sure sign that you are getting bigger.
It's as simple as that.
It's very likely that you have uttered those words a few times yourself.
But what does the phrase really mean? When and how did that phrase came to being? Does it mean that you only gain muscle and get stronger if you feel pain? And does it mean that you are not doing an effective workout if you don't feel any pain at all? Does all pain lead to muscle growth? Well, the phrase was popularized by actress Jane Fonda who, back in the early 80s, began to produce a series of aerobics workout videos.
In her videos, Fonda uses the phrase "no pain, no gain" (along with "feel the burn") as catchphrases to describe an effective workout.
The phrase eventually got adopted by the bodybuilding community and has been used ever since to express the belief that people who avoid pain will never gain large solid muscles.
Well, obviously, "no pain, no gain" does not apply to joint pain.
Joint pain is never good.
Pain is your body's alarm system and you need to listen to it.
If you are feeling any pain in your joints, it's a sure sign that there is something wrong.
It could mean that your in an improper form, it could also mean that there is something wrong with the joint in question, among other things.
Having that said, if you feel pain in your joint(s) while doing your workout you need to stop what you are dong immediately and try a different grip.
For example, if you are using an underhand grip, try doing an overhand grip.
You can also try to change the angle of your elbows like using a wider or narrower grip that what you are currently doing.
What I'm saying here basically is if you are experiencing any pain in your joint(s), you must right away try to find out if there's any way at all for you to perform a particular workout without experiencing any joint pain.
If changing your position/form does not get rid of the problem, you may have to reduce the weight that you are using/lifting and compensate by doing a higher number of repetitions.
If nothing works, then it's time that you go see a doctor and have him/her find out what is actually causing the pain and fix it if that's at all possible.
So, keep in mind that pain in the joints is always bad.
And it's not just joint pains.
Although it's very natural for our muscles to feel sore after an intense workout, you should bear in mind that not all muscular pains are good.
Muscle pain that is sharp, sudden, or one that occurs as a jolt of pain is most likely a sign that serious injury has occurred.
Muscle tears and separations typically cause this kind of pain and these things are not good.
It could take months to recover from something like this.
Obviously, this is not the pain we are talking about when we say "no pain, no gain".
If you feel this kind of pain, you need to immediately stop what you are doing and it's best if you have somebody run and get you a bag of ice you can use for an ice pack, at least until you get to a doctor.
Do not believe that pain when lifting only stops wimps.
An advanced bodybuilder understands his/her body very well and is capable of distinguishing between good pain and bad pain.
So, what kind of pain is good? Before I get into that, I would just like to clarify that there's never been any research that has proven that pain is required to get bigger or stronger.
In fact, many people get bigger and stronger without ever getting soar.
So, if you are not getting soar after your workout, don't despair.
Having said that, the most intense workouts cause the most soreness and workout intensity is definitely correlated with muscle mass and strength gains.
So, this can be a very good thing.
Now, going back to the good kind of pain, the first kind of good muscle pain occurs during the workout itself about three quarters of the way through a set.
It starts as a slow burn, and then with each subsequent rep the pain gets a little more intense.
And at the end of the set you feel like you're going to die.
This pain is caused by lactic acid build up and it's not that lactic acid is good in itself, but it's an indicator that your focus is excellent and that you are pushing hard enough to cause muscle growth.
The second kind of good muscle pain is the late onset muscle soreness.
This is the pain that you feel on your muscles a couple of days after working out.
This is highly desirable and sought after by bodybuilders.
It's the reason why bodybuilders take the elevator rather than the stairs after a heavy leg workout.
If you've done some really intense leg workout then you probably know what I'm talking about.
Your quads and other leg muscles are so sore that when you bend your knees it feels as if your legs are going to collapse.
When you workout with sufficient intensity, it causes micro tears in your muscles which your body then has to repair.
During this repair process the muscles get sore.
It can take a day or two before you start feeling the pain and it could take up to a week for the repairs to be complete depending on the intensity of your workout.
This muscle soreness is a good indicator of a good workout intensity.
The soreness that you feel is a sign that your muscle are being rebuilt bigger and stronger.
By the way, that soreness should also remind you to keep your nutrition strict and that you should eat small well-balanced meals every two to three hours to give your body the building blocks it needs to rebuild your muscles.
If you don't provide your body with the nutrients it needs to build muscle then you are not going to get bigger muscles, no matter how intense your workout is.
But like what I said earlier, if you don't feel sore after your workout, it doesn't mean that you didn't have an effective workout session.
Some muscles just don't seem to get sore, typically the calves and shoulders.
Now, keep in mind that you have to wait for the soreness to go away before you go back to working out again.
If you workout while still feeling sore, there is no way that you can generate the intensity required to gain more muscle.
Now, if pain is not a reliable indicator of an effective workout, how can you measure success? Tape measures and weighing scales are no good here since the amount of muscle you gain each time you workout is very small that it's not going to show up in those.
To give you a better picture, you can gain only about 5 to 10 pounds in a year (if you workout and watch your diet religiously).
Now try computing for how much muscle you are gaining for each day of the year by dividing those 5 to 10 pounds by 365.
The most effective way to track your success is to keep a log book where you can record the weights that you are lifting and the exercises that you are doing and how many reps you are doing.
Now if you see after a month that you are doing a couple more reps than you did when you started, that means you're getting stronger.
If you've increased the weight you're lifting, that means you are getting stronger.
So, if you are getting stronger, that's a sure sign that your workouts are effective.
And if you are getting stronger, that's a sure sign that you are getting bigger.
It's as simple as that.