Though I’m not old, (40 is the new 30, right?), I am confronted on a daily basis with chronic aches and pains that come from nowhere.

This is Anne. She works out even when she's wearing a boot. 

It's like my body is now cashing in all of the checks I wrote in my teens and twenties. One day my achilles hurts, the next day it's my achilles and my knees, and by Wednesday, I don't know what the hell I did to my shoulder but that's messed up too.

Who's kidding?  

As it turns out, just Father Time.

I'm not sure that anything is more discouraging than feeling like you can no longer do the activities that you want to do. Suddenly you do feel old and worse yet, incapable. For awhile you grind through the pain and depending on the issue, that might be okay for a time. But eventually that will catch up with you too. 

Before long, out of shear frustration you might decide to stop doing anything at all, though as a friend once told me "my aunt stopped working out because her back hurt and that was 40 years ago."

Once you stop doing anything, it's difficult to start up again. 

So if you're looking for the number one tip for training around an injury, it's gotta be this one:

1. Don't stop training

Since working at my current gym, I've seen a number of clients who work through and around pain and injury on a daily basis. In the photo above, you see Anne planking with a boot on her foot. She works around her aches and pains. In her mind, that's just part of what you do. In many other folks minds, that's when you take time off. Depending on the specific injury, some time off may be in your best interest, but in many cases, there is still something that you can do. 

If you have knee pain, you can still focus on your upper body. If you have shoulder pain, you can still focus on your lower body. If you have both, no worries - there's still core work and other, regressed exercises you can likely do.    

Below is a photo of Andrea, who is 54 year’s old, planking with 60 pounds worth of chains on her back. She held the plank for close to a minute (or eight slow breaths) and did four sets. Combined with some other core work. 

I would have given her more chains, but she was already using them all. 

Aside from the fact that Andrea is ridiculously strong and this picture is diesel, she is a client who often reminds me of how much you can still do, even when you have restrictions.

At 54 years old, Andrea is less than three years removed from a double knee replacement. Since that surgery, she has dropped 20 pounds and has maintained her fat loss. With the knee replacement came certain restrictions - there is plenty that she cannot do - and like many other folks adjusting to their bodies with age - probably plenty of days she'd like to take off.

But she consistently shows up for her workouts three times per week. And does plenty on her own in between. 

When I asked what advice she might have for folks trying to work out around injury, she offered this next tip. 

2. Be willing to do a different routine than you used to do

A little while back I wrote a post about training for the past, which is a difficult habit to break, especially for those who have been training for many years. It's so easy to focus on "getting back to an 8-minute mile or 2x bodyweight deadlift" instead of training for who and where you are now. ust because you can't do the same exercises in the same way you used to doesn't mean you need to quit training - but it might mean you need to make some adjustments for the long game. 

Andrea can squat - but not to parallel - and because of that knee replacement, she can no longer do any exercises from her knees. I've also seen her deal with hip and shoulder pain at times. But what I've come to appreciate most in working with her is her focus on what she can do and the way she takes her ego out of her decision-making. If she can't do an exercise she'll flat out tell you.   

Sometimes, myself included, we do exercises we know I shouldn't be doing. (Like maybe bench pressing only 5 months out of shoulder surgery even though it kind of hurts). I have no good reason for doing that stupid stuff other than letting my ego get in the way. 

Andrea's third piece of advice (she practically wrote this, thanks Andrea) is this:

3. Find a coach

When you are dealing with an injury, find a coach who can program properly for you. In the case of knee pain or a knee injury, which most folks over the age of 35 have in some form or another, there's still plenty that you can do, but there's also a list of exercises that you should probably avoid. Finding a coach to help you navigate those decisions can go a long way in helping you build back your confidence in training, and having some trust in your body again.  

Bonus tip: seek medical advice

As someone who avoids doctors way more than I should, I know this is a tough one. But it's important to know what you're dealing with when it comes to pain, and it's very helpful for your coach. No coach worth her salt is going to guess her way into working out around an injury. 

Have an injury? Or questions about training around an injury? Leave a comment below or shoot me an email at kim@kimlloydfitness.com  

I’m a big fan of simplicity. One of the reasons I took up running in college was the ease of getting started. Put on some shoes and run. Boom.

Or, depending on how you roll - skip the shoes and just run. 

Over the weekend I joined other fitness professionals for a three-day fitness summit hosted by Perform Better. One of the speakers, Rachel Cosgrove has been training clients, and women in particular for over 20 years. She's an expert at helping people get results, and in her talk spoke to a good reminder that we all easily forget.

Focus on the big rocks.

This reminder has been a big part of my studies with Precision Nutrition - the idea of mastering the basics of getting enough sleep, enough water, fun (ok that's mine) as part of your base. I see a lot of clients start in the weeds - should I do intermittent fasting? Go Paleo? Should I take BCAA's and fish oil and hair of the lemur 22 minutes after my workout? 

Should I eat my protein while riding a goat off into the sunset with a koala bear? 

Yes, you should - but invite me along because I love goats and koala bears. 

A strong focus on those minute details can cause information overload and decision fatigue - and before you know it, you're too exhausted from trying to understand what's you should be doing and just throw in the towel.

(Hold on to the towel. No throwing of the towel. If it's yellow, you may wave it at Steelers' games - but you must not throw it.)

Some of the big rocks in training include training with a purpose 3-5 times a week, warming up with a purpose, and working on areas of opportunity, such as performing a push up from the floor or a chin up. 

TRAIN WITH A PURPOSE

Over the weekend, we got t-shirts that said: “stop exercising and start training.” I love the quote and I think this could be a blog post in and of itself. When you sign up to work with a coach, the two of you have a goal in mind and the coach develops a plan to help you hit that goal. Whether you want to drop a pant size, gain lean muscle or perform a push up from the floor - your programming is the road map you need to follow. 

Exercising is getting out and moving, which is good for you, but is there a purpose behind it? Do you know if what you're doing is going to help you achieve your goal? 

(To read more on why you need a coach, check out this post)

WARM UP WITH A PURPOSE

No, chasing your dog does not count as a warm up, although you do want to get your body temperature up. Warming up with a purpose means warming up the muscles and movements you’re about to use in your workout. We don’t do toy soldiers because we want to know if you’d make the Rockettes, we do that to warm up your hamstrings before working your hips. 

GET ENOUGH SLEEP

Are you getting enough sleep? Most of us know we’re not. According to the Sleep Foundation, adults age 26-64 need 7-9 hours and adults over 65 need 7-8 hours. If you are averaging less than seven hours of sleep per week, we know that you want to work on your batwings (one client’s name for skin on the triceps) and belly fat, but one of the best places to start is to get more sleep. That means turning off the phones and iPads 30 minutes before bed (or turn on the Night Shift which reduces the blue lights) and put a priority on getting more, quality sleep.

GET ENOUGH WATER 

Recommendations from Precision Nutrition on water are that sedentary individuals drink at least two liters, athletes drink three litters, and athletes in hot weather climates drink at least four liters per day. Many of us would benefit from drinking more water. Especially those of us like myself who drink most of their water with…well…a lot of coffee in it…

Some of the other big rocks in nutrition include eating whole foods (single ingredient), eating slowly and mindfully, and following the formula of a serving of protein, vegetables, and healthy fats with each meal. 

Regardless of your goals, we live in a time of information overload. In fact, I saw this great quote from strength coach Ben Bruno the other day. 

Be careful of the weeds. Stick to the rocks. 

When I first moved to Boston, I joined a slow pitch softball team called Wild Things. Or Wild. Or something like that. 

I was at third base in one of my first games and made a sexy diving stop on a sharply hit ground ball. I almost surprised myself with my reflexes, and stood up only to here my teammates yelling at me. 

“Try harder!”

My face betrayed my indignation before the shortstop wandered over and explained that was the inside joke for when you couldn’t possibly have tried any harder. 

Irony. Or something.

As I’ve moved into the realms of personal training and coaching, we don’t often talk about effort. The goal for so many folks is to just get started and build consistency that’s it’s easy to forget about what happens when you do start exercising or going to the gym on a regular basis.

But once you do build that routine, the next question becomes:

How hard are you working? 

The Borg Scale (No, not like Victory Borge) is also known as the Rate of Perceived Exertion Scale and is a way of measuring physical activity intensity level. On the Borg scale, the measurement is from 6-20. They skip 1-5 because, apparently, try harder? (Actually, the skip the first five numbers for scientific reasons - I think).

It’s not uncommon to hear from a friend or a client that he or she is working out, and just not seeing results. On my Facebook page, I just started a “Be Stronger Challenge” and the goal is two-fold: if you don’t have a workout routine, develop one. If you are sedentary, then start moving. 

This is a one on the Borg Scale. Even though there is no one. 

But the second piece is that if you are moving, walking, or doing steady state cardio, start paying attention to how you feel during the physical activity. According to the CDC “a high correlation exists between a person’s perceived exertion rating times 10 and the actual heart rate during physical activity; so a person’s exertion rating may provide a fairly good estimate of the actual heart rate during activity (Borg, 1998).

If your RPE is 12, which on the Borg scale is working hard, and you multiply that number by 10, then your heart rate is like 120 beats per minute. (That's why we skipped the first five numbers). Researchers have found that measuring your own effort is a quick and effective way to judge intensity. (Click if you want to read more about the Borg Scale).

For a person with a higher fitness level, walking the dog may feel like a 9, which on the Borg scale is the equivalent of very light. For someone who is overweight and has been sedentary, walking the dog for 20 minutes may be a 15 on the Borg scale (hard). What matters most is measuring your own feeling of effort and exertion, and not how it compares to other people’s.

Don’t underestimate that last piece. Evaluate your own feeling of exertion - not how your friend feels. But also be honest - if you are out walking, measure your effort. (Heart rate monitors can be useful for this, but the ones that measure on your wrist can be very inaccurate.)

If you want to see results - which for many is fat loss - the exercise needs to be, according to the CDC, 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity - which means brisk walks. If you are already doing that - the next challenge is to move towards 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic activity. If you come to Spurling Fitness, you are going to strength train - and then you are going to push a sled, slam some ropes, or throw some medicine balls. We're going to get your heart rate up and push it a little more. 

The bottom line is that while it is important to get up and move and start doing something, it's equally important to begin paying attention to your effort. 

So, in the words of my Wild teammates, sometimes you may have to try harder. 

But make sure to have fun while you do it. 

This is a 15 on the Borg Scale.