“Doesn’t that hurt?” It was an odd question, I thought, coming from a personal trainer at least. I was doing some lateral raises with fairly light dumbbells while wearing a tank top, and I still had a really ugly red, 4.5 inch scar on the front of my right shoulder that was adhered to the tissue underneath, so the shoulder certainly looked pretty bad at that point. The trainer came up behind me and saw the scar in the mirror and asked what it was. When I told her that it was a surgical scar to clean out an infection and reattach a rotator cuff tendon, that’s when when she asked the question–about the exercise I was doing. My response was, “Sure it hurts, but it hurts anyway, whether I’m doing anything with it or not, so I might as well try to make it stronger even if I can’t make it painfree again.” The trainer just shook her head and left me there.

Today, about 5 years later, the stupid shoulder still hurts when I do lateral raises, and it hurts when I do wide grip pullups with a 32 pound weighted vest on. And it still hurts even when I’m doing absolutely nothing with it. BUT, it’s a lot stronger than it used to be, and it doesn’t hurt AS BAD as it used to!

Am I suggesting you do what I did? NO! I hope you’re smarter than I am and that you let your doctor deal with your conditions and give you the appropriate advice. In fact, that’s actually what I did as well. The surgeon said that I probably would “never be able to do certain things again,” and then she listed a bunch of the stuff I do now every day, but she didn’t say I couldn’t try to do them. She just said that I could try to do whatever I wanted, and that pain would tell me if I was trying to do too much.

Well, that’s the point of this blog, that PAIN thing! See, pain should NOT be the only thing that tells you whether you’re doing the right thing or not. Pain in a joint while you’re trying to work it, especially if it is accompanied by some swelling or radiating numbness and tingling, is a good indicator that you could damage the body part worse if you continue. But, muscular pain, post-exercise pain that is just caused by heavy lifting and microscopic muscle fiber damage, you can fight through that.

It’s a fine line really. If you don’t work out every time you’re in pain, you’re not going to get much done during twelve weeks. If you put too much stress on a joint that is damaged, you could hurt it bad. It’s that “listen to your body” thing I guess. One thing I know for sure, though, and that is that my body is a lot lazier than my mind. My body wants to quit whenever things get tough, and that’s when it’s time to really pull myself together, and do something I didn’t think I could do. That’s the beauty of BFL. After a while, you’ll find that, pain or not, you can do things you didn’t believe you were capable of. Those dumbbells you couldn’t even lift out of the box? In a few weeks you’ll be looking for newer, heavier ones because they’re just too light!

Today, the things that surgeon listed in her “won’t be able to do list,” I do them all. I do wide grip pullups, 20 reps at least with full body weight; body weight parallel bar dips, about 20 reps, lateral raises, and even barbell bench pressing. You really are capable of more than you think, but don’t court danger by beyond where you ought. Use good sense, listen to your body, and keep a spotter around too!