New Year, New...Pain?

New Year's resolutions are wonderful and can lead to some long-lasting, life-changing behaviors for some people. For others, it means going all-in with a new behavior and then quickly burn out, failing to create a sustainable change. 

The most popular New Year's resolutions, as we all know, are fitness related. Thousands, if not millions of people each New Year want to lose weight, start working out, run a marathon/do a triathlon, compete in a Crossfit competition, etc.  Very few individuals will reach their goals and see their resolution through until the next New Year's challenge. Others will maintain their new resolution for few months with their motivation waxing and waning until they fall off the wagon. However, the majority of people will fizzle out in a measly few weeks or a month. 

When it comes to fitness or activity-based resolutions there is one big culprit for people not sticking it out and no, its not their motivation or busy schedule to blame.

Its pain! 

Think about it. Let's make up a fictional character named Jim. Jim is a 37 year old married father of 3. At the beginning of 2020, Jim was in good shape. He wasn't shredded, but he didn't have a dad bod either. He was able to stay pretty active with weight training and walking on the treadmill to maintain his level of fitness.

That is, until Covid struck and wreaked havoc on Jim's routine and his physique. With the shutdown, Jim and his wife were now stuck working from home while trying to entertain their kids, who were also trapped in the house that now feels more like a prison.

Jim had a couple dumbbells and a treadmill in his basement, but with the stress of being stuck at home with his kids all day and night as well as the added stress of trying to figure out how the heck to do his job virtually his home workouts didn't last long. 

Before he knew it, Jim had packed on 30lbs and felt worse than he ever had before in his life. 

By the end of 2020, most everything had opened back up and Jim had his eyes set on a big return to the gym for his New Year's Resolution so he can get his fitness, body, and life back.

Jim went hard for the first few weeks. He was lifting 5 days per week and doing cardio at least 3 days per week. Then Jim noticed his back being achy. He didn't think much of it and kept pushing, thinking it was going to get better over time. This back pain continued to worsen and became more and more overwhelming.

Jim did some google searches and tried a few things, but nothing seemed to help so he stopped lifting weights and focused on cardio. Jim loved the weights and was not a cardio bunny so the only cardio workouts didn't last long. Before the end of January, Jim's return to his old self was over, all because of some back pain. 

When you go from 0-60 into a new training regimen or activity, like Jim did, and you don't ease into something new while giving your body time to adapt then demands are put on tissues and structures that have never had those sorts of demands put on them before. 

If your body isn't given adequate time to adjust and adapt then you will likely get caught in a vicious cycle of injury and repair where the pain and injury slowly gets worse and worse. 

If you are someone who jumped head first into a New Year's Resolution or just a new sport or hobby and are now battling pain, have no fear because there is a simple solution. 

Oftentimes, all you need to do is dial back the intensity or frequency that you're doing the new thing and give your body time to adapt to the demands. Our bodies are amazing machines and can be pretty dang self-sufficient if we let them be. 

So if you're hurting from your New Year's Resolution, try taking it easy for a little while. Maybe cut the frequency or intensity in half and then slowly ramp it back up over the course of at least a month if not two. That will give the body ample time to adapt to what you're doing while avoiding injury. 

If you're already too deep in the hole with pain that you can't even do your workouts, sport, or hobby at a lower intensity then you need to do something about it! Complete our contact us form here, and we will get you back on track for that New Year, New You that you dreamed of!

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