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I am an "endurance athlete" that regularly rides my bike 60+ miles. It's not a serious physical pain, like when you twist an ankle - I know when I am doing my

I am an "endurance athlete" that regularly rides my bike 60+ miles. It's not a serious physical pain, like when you twist an ankle - I know when I am doing my body harm. It's pushing past a major amount of discomfort in order to achieve a goal. Granted, doing so without proper nutrition and hydration can cause injury, however your body is better off when you push through your concept of "too much". Seriously, my body used to tell me "oh god stop stop stop this is too much" after 30 miles of flat riding. Now it take 60 miles of hilly riding to experience that, and it's not nearly as strong. I guess to sum it up, it isn't normal pain, it's more of a mental wall that you push past.

Retric 16y ago
I have done a fair amount of MA training and I think the best way to think about pain is recovery time. If I do this it will take my body less than two days to recover and it hurts but, that's reasonable if I want to progress. The next level of pain takes longer than that to recover from and should be avoided at all [1] costs. Fast recovery pain still has its downsides if you needed to escape from a burning building or run from a tiger right after a serious workout you would be slower and have a higher risk of injury etc. But, the modern world is fairly safe so it’s reasonably safe to ignore that kind of pain. Unfortunately recovering from injury takes longer as we age so reasonable habits for a 19 year old can get a 35 year old into serious trouble. Also, you tend to get a mix of short and long term dammage so repeating low level pain can still be a sign your doing significant long term dammage. [1] People are often willing to do longer term damage in major contests and fights. How reasonable this is depends on your personal goals.
- matwood 16y ago
  You make a great point about recovery time. Many people incorrectly assume that if you finish your workout hurting then it was a good workout. The problem is that as you get better it becomes much harder to hurt and it becomes a recovery management challenge. What people seem to have anecdotally found is that more workouts which can be recovered from in a day or two are much better than the giant ones that leave you hobbling for a week. I think this becomes even more important where there are skills involved beyond only strength (like MA).

Retric 16y ago

I have done a fair amount of MA training and I think the best way to think about pain is recovery time. If I do this it will take my body less than two days to recover and it hurts but, that's reasonable if I want to progress. The next level of pain takes longer than that to recover from and should be avoided at all [1] costs. Fast recovery pain still has its downsides if you needed to escape from a burning building or run from a tiger right after a serious workout you would be slower and have a higher risk of injury etc. But, the modern world is fairly safe so it’s reasonably safe to ignore that kind of pain. Unfortunately recovering from injury takes longer as we age so reasonable habits for a 19 year old can get a 35 year old into serious trouble. Also, you tend to get a mix of short and long term dammage so repeating low level pain can still be a sign your doing significant long term dammage. [1] People are often willing to do longer term damage in major contests and fights. How reasonable this is depends on your personal goals.

matwood 16y ago
You make a great point about recovery time. Many people incorrectly assume that if you finish your workout hurting then it was a good workout. The problem is that as you get better it becomes much harder to hurt and it becomes a recovery management challenge. What people seem to have anecdotally found is that more workouts which can be recovered from in a day or two are much better than the giant ones that leave you hobbling for a week. I think this becomes even more important where there are skills involved beyond only strength (like MA).