Nowadays, there are a hundred and one ways to track and measure all kinds of body-stats. In a gym, most people you meet are sure to have a detailed workout-log (maybe even as a digital app with graphs and everything) and a heart-rate monitoring device. Not that they always use them, but they definitely have them…

In all this, it’s easy to forget that your body still gives you the most subtle and most important kind of feedback before, during and after your workouts. In particular, it tells how far you can push yourself.

You need to make sure that you push your limits when exercising, but you also need to make sure never to push too hard, too far. In general, there are two types of people: There are those who tend not to go far enough (“lazy”) and those who tend to push too much and risk injury.

If you belong to the former category, you’re mind is probably very good at coming up with excuses for why you should skip a workout or take it easy. You may have planned to do three sets, but you’re only doing one because of some reason or other.

If you’re an over-doer, on the other hand, you probably have “tough guy syndrome”. You feel like you need to be tough and that suffering is just a part of progress. Also, you probably think lots of negative thoughts about yourself if you ever skip a workout or “go too easy on yourself” and you hate the idea of being lazy or a slacker.

In both cases, you need two things:

1. Someone who can tell you which type you are.
Whichever type you think you are might not be the type you are. If you’re an over-doer, you might think you are lazy, because every least bit of leeway you give yourself seems like totaly laziness to you. You need someone who can objectively and truthfully tell you which type you are. Ask a good friend or maybe your trainer/coach about this.

2. Learn to distinguish between two types of pain.
Sure, to a certain extent, pain is simply something that comes with exercise. There are two different types of pain, though: There’s the kind of pain that’s worse in your head than in your body. The kind of pain that makes you want to stop because sitting on a couch is more comfortable than doing another repetition. The kind where your muscles are burning and hurting, but still fully functional.

On the other hands, there’s what I call “deep pain”. This is the kind that goes deeper than just a burning sensation in the muscle. It’s a sharper pain, often felt in the joints or lower muscle tissue and it should never be ignored. This is the kind of pain where your body is truly telling you to take it down a notch and give yourself some rest.

If you’ve been exercising for a while, I have no doubt you know about both these types of pain. The key is to be honest to yourself. Trying to be a tough-guy and not stopping because of real, “deep” pain is always a bad idea. That will only get you injured (believe me, I’ve made my fair share of stupid mistakes like this…). On the other hand, don’t be a wuss and stop training before you’ve reached your limits. A bit of a burning sensation in the muscles can’t be avoided when you’re really working out.

At the end of the day it comes down to being honest with yourself and being conscious of what’s really going on. Listen to your body and adjust your workout accordingly, and you’ll always come out stronger at the end.

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