Right Fit Blog

Welcome to Part 2 of my guide on avoiding injury, to keep yourself in the gym longer and train with more efficiency. Here is the second tip for training on a regular basis. 

Tip #2: Adapt your Workouts

“No Pain, No Gain” is plastered all over gym walls across America, but this starts to lead to some incorrect practices in training if taken at face value. Yes, muscle teardown is the focal point of weightlifting, but more often than not, other than the first few days of training, you should not be in regular pain while working out, even at elite levels of athletic body-building. 

Some people talk about the burn, but that can be confused with a constant burn in a muscle group, one that spasms even when you don’t lift and irritates you during recovery windows. This is overexertion, and it is usually a sign that you are performing a repetition incorrectly, or with too much weight. 

Just because a trainer says to start with high weights doesn’t mean you start at THEIR highest weights. Adaptation is the key to building workouts that not only hit your goals, but help you to be resilient in approaching them. If you have a shoulder irritation that won’t go away after a tricep pull, then maybe try a lat pull instead. Yes, it’s a different muscle group, and you may not get the gains you want immediately, but this isn’t an immediate gratification process. If your bicep failed on that last bench press, maybe switch to pushups or an elevated press. Adjust to your body’s demands, and recognize that THIS is not your ONLY workout. You can hit it again tomorrow or the next day when you are rested. 

Pushing yourself is fantastic, and exceptional for your mind, but being there to push yourself tomorrow with a healthy muscular system is more essential than getting that last set in or hitting that max, especially when your body is getting stronger regardless. 

I figured this out the hard way, and that’s because I am often a competitive trainer. There are two types of mindsets I have trained with in my life that create these issues: Competition and Cooperation. A competitor sees what the person next to them is doing and will meet them at their level, regardless of if they are being pushed or encouraged to do so. If I see someone next to me hefting 40’s on a dumbbell press, more often than not, I will attempt the same just because they did it. Now most competitors are not as extreme as that, but you have to be aware of what type of mentality you take when approaching workouts. This can lead to overworking or injury VERY easily.

A cooperator will often simply follow their routine, and when working with others, will support their goals rather than attempt to achieve their own, at the detriment of their workout. As helpful as that may sound, cooperators often feel that gym time is wasted or unfulfilling BECAUSE they didn’t seek their own goals and their own achievement, and therefore, left without accomplishing anything. The flipside is being too cooperative, to the point where you will staunchly follow a routine even when you are on the verge of injury or strain. Not recognizing your own trepidation in order to not change a routine can lead to the same result: injury.

As with all things, balance is the answer. The best mindset, a third option, is Adaptation. An adaptor will see a routine for what it is: a pattern that can be changed. Just because a workout did something one day does not mean it will continue to do that thing for you.

When approaching a new routine, or a routine you have done a million times, be an Adaptor.