Everyone who trains feels discomfort at some point. The skill isn't avoiding it — it's reading it calmly and adjusting, rather than fixating on it.
If you train long enough, something will ache. A knee on a lunge, a shoulder pressing overhead, a lower back the morning after a long day at the desk. That is not a sign you are doing it wrong. It is a normal part of having a body and asking it to do more.
What decides how you get on is what you do next. Some people ignore it and push until it becomes a real problem. Others become so focused on it that every session turns into a search for symptoms, and they stop training altogether. Neither works. The goal is to treat discomfort as information — useful, worth listening to, but not in charge.
Pain is a signal, not a damage report
Pain is your nervous system's way of saying "pay attention". It is influenced by load, but also by sleep, stress, how worried you are about it, and how familiar the movement is. That is why the same squat can feel fine on a Saturday and sore on a stressful Thursday. It doesn't automatically mean something is damaged — and it doesn't mean you should ignore it either.
A simple traffic-light check
Rate what you feel from 0 to 10 during and after the movement. It takes two seconds and stops you guessing.
- Green (0–3): carry on. Mild, familiar, settles as you warm up or soon after.
- Amber (4–5): adjust. Reduce the range, slow it down, lighten the load or swap to a simpler version.
- Red (6+ or sharp): stop that movement today. Train the rest of the body and review it next session.
Then check the next morning. If it is no worse than usual, what you did was fine. If it is clearly worse, you did a bit too much — scale back next time rather than stopping completely.
Adjust, don't abandon
Stopping all training because one area is sore usually makes things worse: you lose strength, confidence and routine at the same time. Almost always there is a version that works.
- Shorten the range — a box squat instead of a full squat, a floor press instead of a bench press
- Slow the tempo so you can control the position you're nervous about
- Change the angle or grip until it feels steady
- Lower the load and add reps, rather than chasing a heavy single
- Keep training everything that feels fine
That is exactly how I coach it. One client put it simply in a Google review: "Thanks to his guidance, I not only regained full mobility of an injured shoulder, but also developed a renewed sense of confidence in both body and mind." The confidence part matters as much as the shoulder.
Don't hyperfocus on it
If you check a sore spot every rep, prod it between sets and read about it at night, it tends to feel louder. Attention turns the volume up. Rate it once, make your adjustment, then put your attention on the movement itself — breathing, position, the one cue you are working on. Most of the time, the discomfort fades into the background as you warm up.
Tom manages to set exercises that challenge me just the right amount, that make me feel stretched, but never 'overworked'. — Jane Ellis, Google review
When to get it checked
A coach can adjust your training; a coach cannot diagnose you. See a GP or physiotherapist if you notice any of these:
- Sharp or stabbing pain, or pain after a fall or impact
- Pain that wakes you at night or is there all the time
- Numbness, tingling, swelling or sudden weakness
- Pain that keeps getting worse over a week or two despite scaling back
If something keeps niggling and you'd like a plan built around it, that's a big part of what I do.
Let's trainCommon questions
- Is it normal to feel pain when strength training?
- Some discomfort is normal — muscle effort, stiffness the day after, an old niggle that speaks up now and then. What isn't normal is sharp pain, pain that keeps climbing during a session, or pain that is worse every week. Those are signals to change something, and sometimes to get it assessed.
- Should I train through pain?
- Train around it rather than through it. If a movement is mildly uncomfortable and settles, carry on. If it is sharp or getting worse, change the range, the load or the movement — keep training everything else.
- When should I see a professional about pain?
- If pain is sharp, follows a fall or impact, wakes you at night, comes with numbness, tingling, swelling or weakness, or isn't improving after a couple of weeks of sensible adjustment, see a GP or physiotherapist. A coach is not a substitute for a diagnosis.
Written by Thomas Beeston, holistic strength coach at Strength by Design.
Apply this approach through in-person coaching in Cambridge or online coaching worldwide.
