I can’t even tell you what I did but yesterday as I was stretching out before my workout, I felt a little twinge of pain in my shoulder. Over the last few years I have suffered from a rotator cuff injury (so frustrating, especially when shoulders are my favorite thing to work out) and a tennis elbow injury. I also have to be careful of my knees and wrists. With all of those sensitive areas, I have to be so in tune with what my body is telling me and respect it if it’s telling me to take it easy – even if I don’t want to.

I’ve tried both approaches – pushing through the pain and avoiding the exercise altogether. The longer you exercise the more you get to know your body and understand it’s limits. There are some aches and pains that I know are just tight and all it will take is spending some extra time using my foam roller like this one and boom! No more issue. But there’s also some pains that I know I have to stop and avoid that area altogether.

Here are my own personal protocol for assessing and dealing with injuries: I strongly recommend that at that first sensation of pain, you stop and do some extra stretches. See if it gets looser and less painful the more you move it and get blood flowing to it. If you feel like the pain is better or very minimal and you want to continue with your workout, perform an extra warm up set. By this I mean to pick a foundational excercise that utilizes that muscle group and complete 1-2 sets of 12-15 reps of a much lower weight than you are typically able to handle. An example would be a tightness in your shoulder. I would take extra time stretching it out and loosening that area and then complete a shoulder press with 10 lb weights. The goal is NOT to fatigue the muscle at this point or build muscle but simply give the signal to that part of your body that you want to use it and work it a bit. This step has been key for me in avoiding injury. Sometimes, that’s all I need and I can continue on to the next step and increase my weight and workout as normal. Sometimes I need to stop the shoulder workout completely and focus on a different area that day. Many times I just stay in that low weight range with the mindset that something is better than nothing. Of course it depends on the type of injury and the pain involved but I believe that this last option has almost served as a physical therapy type approach, allowing me to increase the blood flow to the injured area and allowing me to heal quicker and faster.

I hope that these ideas will help you the next time you feel that dreaded twinge of pain. Listen to your body! That pain is telling you something. Always be sure to stretch before and after your workout. I can’t emphasize this enough. If you need ideas of what stretches to do, click here.

In the case of any injury, contact your physician or health care provider to determine the best course of action for you.