Doing The Right Exercise But You Still Are Still In Pain, Here Is Why!
2025-04-5
This is the LAST week to get our early bird price on our CEU online Chronic Pain Masterclass starting April 15th HERE
Just because I personally know how much chronic pain can impact someone’s quality of life, it really upsets me when I see on the internet promises that if you JUST do these 3 or 5 exercises your pain will go away. This is NOT backed up by ANY evidence that such exercises that cure everyone’s knee, shoulder, or back pain exist! If they did, we would be able to cure one of the biggest causes of disability in the world.
That would be great, but you can see how far fetched such promises are in helping. Why though, why do SOME people actually get better and others don’t seem to benefit from these “magical” exercises.
Power Of Placebo
Placebo often gets a bad rap, but the power of our mind is something that many medical professionals suggest trying to harness. Research has shown that placebo can be upwards of 40% effective in reducing pain (PMID: 8936626). How does this work?
We aren’t completely sure, but research is showing that the brain creates more feel good neurotransmitters, like endorphins and dopamine, to greater activity in certain brain regions linked to moods, emotional reactions, and self-awareness. Altering our brain activity has strong links to also improving our pain experience.
Several studies have shown fake surgeries (people don’t know if they got the surgery or not because they still receive an incision) can be just as effective as the actual surgery (PMID: 12110735). This doesn’t mean we can just positively think our way out of pain, but it does tell us that the MORE we believe something can work, the more likely we are to experience positive benefits. The issue is when those benefits stop being seen and people feel more hopeless that they can’t get better.
Believing that you are doing positive things to help your health and pain are of great value. This isn’t toxic positivity saying “hey, look on the bright side”, but acknowledging this is challenging and yet you are making positive strides to help your issues. Funny enough, self-compassion like this has been shown to help reduce chronic pain experiences (PMID: 31115099)
Acute Pain Is Different Than Chronic Pain
Acute pain is pain that is typically immediately experienced after you do something. You twisted your ankle playing pick-up basketball and now your ankle hurts, this is acute pain. Most acute pain issues resolve themselves anywhere from a few days to several weeks. In fact, 90% of acute low back pain tends to resolves itself in a six week time period (PMID: 22586331).
Even John Hopkins says that injuries like a herniated disc resolves in about 6-8 week as long as you don’t aggravate the situation. This really surprises many, even a friend of ours who works in the medical field said she was all worried because she thought she herniated a disc in her back (even though she was moving and working out overall just fine). Her uneasiness changed dramatically when Jessica gave her this information. This is really important because reducing fear and fixation on pain can reduce pain and even help it NOT go into more chronic stages.
This DOES NOT mean don’t have a medical professional check out your pain. ALWAYS make sure that a medical professional rules out any significant structural damage, or disease process. The point is that even if you have heard you have a herniated disc, you don’t have to go into full panic!
Chronic pain is pain that persists longer than 3 months. This type of pain becomes more challenging because it actually changes aspects of our brain structure and chemistry. In fact, our brain structure can make us more likely to develop chronic pain than the injury itself as this 2013 study points out, “As we have earlier shown that the latter functional connectivity accurately predicts transition to chronic pain, we can conclude that brain structural differences, most likely existing before the back pain-inciting event and independent of the back pain, predispose subjects to pain chronification.”
Does this mean you are doomed? Not at all! The point is that people focus SO much on individual muscles, or joints, etc. that they miss the MUCH bigger picture of what we can do to help pain issues.
Exercise is a VERY powerful tool to help chronic pain and instead of trying to find “the best”, the first step is to see which one’s are most appealing and carry the least amount of fear behind them.
Aerobic exercise has been shown to be an effective tool in helping chronic pain. While there is variance in how helpful (which can be found in all strategies), research has found upwards of 47% pain reductions with regular aerobic exercise. So, if starting by going on walks (especially with friends to increase socialization) is where people feel most comfortable, let’s build that into a habit. (PMID: 27417610)
Core stability can be another very powerful tool for chronic pain. Research has shown that core stability training can be upwards of almost 80% pain reduction for people. The more foundational dead bugs, bird dogs, side planks seem to be more effective than balancing drills and those with large amounts of shaking and bouncing (PMID: 27417610)
What makes core stability really effective is that it can work on an aspect of improper movement that causes the body to create pain. As this study explains, “A reduction in core strength can lead to lumbar instability [82], and lumbar instability also reduces the flexibility of the lumbar spine [83]. CLBP patients restrict their trunk movement to reduce the pain in the lumbosacral area, however this only further reduces core strength and increases lumbar instability, resulting in low back pain” (PMID: 27417610)
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The key is be very purposeful in teaching HOW to create stability and the progressions we use to build upon these concepts.
Flexibility and strength training has BOTH been found to be effective as well. The essential aspect of both is to be aware of issues on how hard and how much you are doing as well as where you start and how you progress. If you are doing all this and still having pain, what’s wrong? What are you missing? Tomorrow’s post we will address the parts that fitness REALLY misses on chronic pain and why you need to know this information!
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However, if you aren’t working out much at all, find a routine that you enjoy and can have consistency with at first. Be less concerned about what is the “perfect” exercise and be intentional, make sure you aren’t doing too much too fast, and realize it will be about consistency.
This is the LAST week to get our early bird price on our CEU online Chronic Pain Masterclass starting April 15th HERE
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