Lifting With Pain or Injury: 5 Strategies to Keep Working Out
Proven Strategies to Keep Lifting With Pain (Without Making It Worse)
You’ve probably heard that if you’re in pain, you should stop working out. But that’s one of the worst pieces of advice you can get.
Knowing when to keep going and when to stop is a great skill to develop. Pain doesn’t automatically mean you need to stop training. In fact, completely resting after an injury can often slow your recovery. On the flip side, pushing through pain or ignoring it can set you up for long-term setbacks.
So what’s the solution?
These five strategies will help you train around pain—not through it—so you can stay strong, support recovery, and keep making progress. After helping hundreds of people overcome pain without missing time in the gym, I’ve seen these strategies work time and time again:
1. Modify the Exercise, Not the Pattern
If a specific exercise causes pain, the goal is to keep the movement pattern intact while changing the variation. For example, if back squats hurt, don’t stop squatting altogether. Try front squats, goblet squats, or elevate your heels.
Simple modifications—like switching barbells for dumbbells, using a machine, or adjusting grip or stance—can relieve discomfort while keeping the same foundational movement.
2. Use Isometrics or Tempo Work
Isometrics (holding tension without movement) and tempo training (slowing down the speed of reps) are powerful tools when training with pain. These methods reduce stress on joints, increase time under tension, and can even improve neuromuscular control.
Try pausing at specific points in a movement or slowing down the eccentric (lowering) phase. These tweaks often reduce pain and help break through strength plateaus.
3. Modify the Load or Range of Motion
If you need to reduce stress on a movement, drop the weight or shorten the range of motion—but ideally not both at the same time. For example, try a box squat instead of a deep squat, or a floor press instead of a full-range bench press.
This lets you keep training the pattern while minimizing pain and allowing recovery to happen.
4. Train a Complementary Movement
Sometimes the best strategy is to switch to a similar movement that still targets the same muscle groups. One common way to do this is shifting from bilateral to unilateral work—for example, swapping deadlifts for single-leg Romanian deadlifts.
You can also explore variations within the same muscle group: if overhead pressing causes pain, incline pressing or push-ups might feel better.
5. Sub Out the Exercise (Last Resort)
If none of the above strategies help, then—and only then—it’s time to replace the exercise entirely. But even then, you should still train surrounding muscle groups or alternative movement patterns.
Can’t squat or lunge without pain? Try leg extensions, hamstring curls, or glute bridges. Upper body movement hurting? Machines, cables, or isolation movements can still keep you progressing.
Stopping altogether is rarely necessary—you just need to be strategic.
Final Thoughts
Pain during workouts is common—but that doesn’t mean it’s normal. Pain is a signal that something in your movement or programming needs to change.
With the right strategy, you can keep building strength, improve recovery, and avoid losing momentum. Use these five strategies to adjust your workouts before pain turns into injury.
If you want a training plan that gets you strong, lean, and durable without breaking down your body—that’s exactly what I help men do.
Download a free workout template on day 3 of our Body [re]Building email course, that will allow you to swap out exercises and keep training hard.
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