There is an old joke that goes,
Doctor my arm hurts when I do this—and the doctor goes—well then don’t do it.
O.K.
I might have gotten the joke wrong.
And my joke telling skills could use some work, but the point remains, if an exercise hurts—don’t do it anymore.
Or, figure out why it hurts and see if you can correct the problem—and if you can’t then don’t do the exercise anymore.
O.K.
So you might be thinking—man this is nothing new—I know that!
Sure, maybe, but it amazes me what some people do.
For, example, you are committed to getting a big chest—so you start pounding away on the bench.
In short order one or both of your shoulders or elbows start hurting—but you just keep pounding away on the bench.
Until of course you can no longer bench at all.
God was good to me, because I can be very pig headed and have made some seriously stupid mistakes—like my twenty rep squat workout (which I will save for another time), but when I started training I read about lateral raises being good for your shoulders—so I tried them.
They hurt.
So, amazingly I stopped them.
Thank you God for this.
Because normally I would continue—like the bench press example from above—until disaster would strike.
BODYBUILDING HAS MANY CHOICES
The thing about bodybuilding is this, there are tons of exercises, so it makes no sense to continue to pound out lying french presses (for your triceps’s) if they hurt your elbows, because you can always find another exercise.
CONCLUSION
If you do nothing else, please take my advice on this, if something hurts and you cannot figure out why—then stop doing it.
Before you can no longer stand the pain and need to go for surgery or therapy on the area.
There are more than enough options out there—so find exercises that work the target muscle—and yes I will say it again—that don’t hurt.
When you find yourself ten years down the line, and your shoulders, elbows, and knees do not hurt—you will be glad you did.
WORK HARD BUT SMART
