No Pain Exercise Guide

Contrary to the popular catch phrase, you do not need to feel pain to gain the benefits of a healthful exercise workout. In fact, pain during or after exercise may signal a problem. Not surprisingly, prevention is the best strategy for avoiding exercise pain and injury.

Good Advice

Pacing your exercise efforts and progressing gradually will help prevent injury. Experts suggest:

Slowly increase the duration and intensity of each exercise period to give your body a chance to adjust.
Begin and end each session with at least five minutes at a slow or moderate pace to let your muscles warm up before exercise and cool down afterward.
Perform some gentle stretching exercises at the start of each session to keep your joints flexible. Avoid bouncing, which may lead to muscle tears.
Take it easy when you first begin exercising—alternate very strenuous sessions with lighter-intensity ones or schedule occasional rest days.
Cross-train: Choose alternate activities to work different muscles and joints. For example, alternate bicycling for lower-body strength with rowing, which works the upper body. Also, you can switch between an aerobic exercise such as jogging and an activity designed to improve flexibility—yoga, for instance.
Temporarily postpone vigorous exercise and resume your exercise routine gradually after a cold or other illness, injury or surgery.

Sore? Stop!

Soreness in your limbs or joints signals that something has gone wrong. Cut back temporarily on your routine to exercise less frequently, less vigorously or for a shorter period.

Despite your best efforts, you may experience an injury while exercising. Some injuries, such as strains and sprains, typically result from a single incident. Other injuries, such as shin splints, stress fractures and tendinitis, stem from repeated use.

A strain is a muscle pull or tear caused by lifting a too-heavy weight or suddenly overextending a muscle. Cold, fatigue or a too-sudden start can boost the risk of strains. Symptoms include sharp pain and the loss of power or mobility. Muscle strains typically occur in the hamstring and quadriceps, thigh muscles, or the muscles of the groin or shoulder. With rest, mild strains usually heal quickly. You can help prevent them by warming up and stretching properly before vigorous exercise.
A sprain damages ligaments, the bands that connect bones. Usually resulting from a sudden twist of the ankle or knee, sprains can range from minor tears to complete ruptures. A minor sprain may take about 10 days to heal. While minor sprains can be treated with RICE (see "Treating Minor Exercise Injuries"), a ruptured ligament requires medical attention. Call your doctor if your sprain fails to improve after 24 hours of home treatment. You may be able to prevent spraining your knee or ankle by strengthening and stretching your leg muscles.
A shin splint causes pain along the front of the lower leg during or after exercise. The cause? Inflamed muscles and tendons, the fibrous cords that link muscles with bones. An impact injury, shin splints are aggravated by running on a hard surface such as concrete, wearing worn shoes, having weak leg muscles or spending too little time stretching and warming up before exercise. Prevention strategies include running on softer surfaces such as grass or a wooden gym floor, wearing well-padded shoes, doing ankle circles and calf stretches before exercising and increasing workout intensity gradually.
A stress fracture is a microscopic broken bone or bones, typically in the foot, shin or thigh. It usually results from the repeated impact of running or jumping. Sometimes undetectable in X-rays, stress fractures require rest to heal. To help prevent them, increase workout intensity gradually, wear well-cushioned shoes and avoid exercising on very hard surfaces.
Tendinitis is an inflammation of the tendons. The best recognized form of tendinitis is tennis elbow—though the condition often is brought on by other sports such as golf or bowling, and even household chores, office work and activities such as hammering. If you have tendinitis in your elbow, you feel pain when you grip, twist or lift. Even turning a doorknob can be painful. Treatment depends on the severity of pain, but often includes a rest from the activity that triggered the injury and anti-inflammatory medicines.

For most minor exercise injuries, it's wise to rest for a day or two, then ease into exercise at a lower intensity. Call your doctor to report pain or swelling that fails to subside within 24 hours.

A Smart Start

If you are just starting an exercise program, be sure to consult your doctor if you:

are a man older than age 40 or a woman older than age 50
have heart disease or another chronic condition, such as diabetes, asthma, multiple sclerosis, anemia, high blood pressure, bursitis or backaches
feel pain in your chest during exertion or while resting
experience episodes of dizziness or fainting
have bone or joint problems, such as arthritis.

How to Treat Minor Exercise Injuries

For minor pain and swelling, experts suggest the RICE treatment—rest, ice, compression and elevation.

Rest: Stop the activity that's causing pain.

Ice: Cold can help reduce swelling. Apply an ice pack or a towel-wrapped package of frozen peas or corn for 10 to 20 minutes every hour or two until the swelling subsides.

Compression: Wrap a bandage or cloth firmly around the affected part, but not so tightly that it hampers blood flow.

Elevation: Lift the injured limb above the level of your heart.