I work with hurting people for a living.
It’s not uncommon for people to seek out a coach or trainer because an exercise isn’t right, or because something – a shoulder, a knee, lower back, maybe their soul – is in constant pain and just can’t seem to get out of their way.
That’s where I come in to save the day.
Most of the time.
To correct someone’s squat technique and maybe (probably) give him/her a reality check.
Boom or Bust
This is a term I stole from a friend of mine, Dan Pope of Champion Physical Therapy & Performance, and is largely rooted in a presentation I watched him give centered around discussing understanding shoulder pain.
“Boom or Bust” refers to the person who runs their business as follows:
Train –> Do a lot –> To the point where it hurts –> Get irritated, upset, inconsolable and inevitably turn up the ice cream and Julia Roberts movies –> Feel better –> Repeat –> Super thumbs up here.
I’m sure many of you reading – whether the above sequence of events describes you or some of your clients – can empathize.
Everything can be summarized using the following chart:
Again, props to Dan Pope. I actually painted of chart but added some Tony LOL.
What it depicts is a scenario and an approach that keeps the alarm system sensitive and the pain levels high. They practice hard on Monday and hit their bench pretty aggressively, of course.
A day or two goes by, the shoulder feels fine, and they decide to test the waters again and do a bunch of high-rep jerks. Another pass or two, the shoulder starts to feel normal again, and since they have no give, you decide it would be a good idea to perform kick-pulls combined with push-ups for AMRAP on broken glass.
All they do is keep pushing their pain threshold and the cycle continues over and over and over like an episode Russian doll.
This, of course, is absurd and makes no sense.
Conversely, what also makes zero sense is the opposite approach…
…UNDERLOAD, over the corrective exercise of people to death, or worse, to do nothing at all.
I am not rejecting the corrective element. Depending on how sensitive one’s pain threshold is, one may well have to resort to a myriad of lateral external rotations, arm bars and bands.
The key to improving pain, however, particularly with the long game on the mind, is to induce a blemish (keyword: SMIDGE) of during training. You want to tease it, buy it a drink, give it a little rest.
If you want to cause change, you have to move. When we move, we induce something called mechanotransduction, which is simply “the tissue starts to heal.”
Pain, when DOSED ACCORDINGLYcan be beneficial during exercise. When we push through a little pain, we generally have better short-term results than if we don’t. Think of it this way:
There is a line on the graph above labeled “pain threshold”. On a scale of 1-10 (1 = not great, I got this and a 10 = holy shit, a panther just latched onto my carotid artery), exercise should hover in the realm of a 2-3.
In this case, the person can tolerate things like thrusting, landmines, and variations in order.
- When performing these exercises, the pain level never goes above “3”.
- When he finishes exercising, along with the hours afterward, the pain level never goes above a “3.”
- The next day, the pain never goes beyond “3” and in an ideal situation it returns to the initial value, which is “1”.
That’s the sweet spot and what we’re looking for in terms of pain management. We do juuuust enough to create a training effect, playing footsie at the pain threshold but avoiding any explosion or collapse scenario where we put common sense before our ego.
And then, over time, the graph looks like this:
I’m an idiot. That arrow pointing up should be labeled “Pain Improvement.”
The pain threshold slowly creeps higher and higher, and before long, the push-ups, the bench, and the fights with Jason Bourne are nothing.
Training (with weights), when it suits someone current skill level, and when administered effectivelyit can be corrective.
Want more of these amazing insights?
Dean Somerset and I are reuniting after six years (thanks COVID) to bring our latest SELF workshop to the masses. The Complete Fit Pro Blueprint will cover topics like this (and many, many more).
Boston – June 6-7, 2026
Dublin, Ireland – 3-4 October 2026
