Why Did I Get My Post-Exercise Pain Flare?

Written By Drew Coverdale

Post Exercise Pain Question

So, I’ve been improving steadily over the last year and slowly recovering from fourteen years of chronic and severe back pain. I totally ‘get’ the mind-body concepts, and while my improvement is slower than I would like, I have a lot of hope that all will be well one day.

I have been walking, swimming, cycling, and gradually increasing my distances, regardless of my pain. This weekend, I did the most exercise I have done in years - Wild Swimming, cycling and walking in the hills—total bliss.

I feel like a different person when I am out in nature. However, after the long drive home, I was in agony and could barely get up the stairs because of the pain in my back, hip and groin. Now, this could be a case of ‘overdoing it ‘, but two days later, I’m still in a mass of pain. Is this subconscious? Is it a ‘genuine’ injury/overuse? How do I know? How do I deal with it?

My stress/thoughts are pretty much the same as before I went away, so I can’t think of anything particular that could trigger it. Suggestions are greatly appreciated!! Thanks

A Great Question

Hi, this is a great question that I often hear.

To help everyone with similar thoughts, I’ve broken down the answers to reflect each of the questions within your post.

It sounds like you are doing fantastic, as often one of the biggest hurdles to overcome is the belief that pain is only related to structural changes or the physical area where we feel pain. 

You should congratulate yourself on this.

The Next Barrier

The next barrier many people find hard to overcome is the frustration that they have let go of their fear, changed their beliefs, started doing the work, and yet the pain doesn’t disappear as quickly as they expect.

Here’s a couple of clues in your post suggesting frustration.

‘My improvement is slower than I would like’.

‘I have been walking, swimming and cycling and gradually increasing my distances, regardless of my pain’.

‘After the long drive home, I was in agony and could barely get up the stairs because of the pain in my back and hip and groin’.

A Suggestion Of Fear

There is still some suggestion of fear because you’re not sure what you’re doing isn’t damaging you.

‘Is this subconscious? Is it a ‘genuine’ injury/overuse? How do I know? How do I deal with it?

None of what you have done has damaged you. 

‘Could be overdoing it?’ - suggests you’re unsure and that uncertainty creates stress. 

Also, look at how you describe your experience of the pain.

‘I’m in pain. Not just pain but a mass of pain!’

What Does That Say?

What does that say to your system, your brain? What does it feed back into the organism to process?

‘Is it overuse?’ - only you will know based on what you are routinely able to do and how much activity you did compared to that previously.

Because you’ve had such a reaction, it sounds like you have overdone it. But you didn’t see it as stress because you enjoyed that activity.

And yet, it is stress.

Stress that you and many others enjoy and should. Still, because your pain is sensitive to those chemicals, it responds not during, when you’re full of adrenaline, which feels ‘bliss’, but afterwards as you come down from that high and those neural pathways which are sensitive to and have just bathed in adrenaline, creating the conscious awareness that they are sensing threat because of that recent surge of adrenaline.

Good Stress

Wild swimming, walking, and cycling all take effort and adrenaline, but we don’t feel that when we enjoy it. We don’t see it as stress - and yet it is stress. Stress is good, but after being overexposed to it for years, we have to gradually expose our nervous system to it to condition it to be okay with that level of stress again.

That includes both good and bad situations involving stress.

Suppose the bad situations have ended, and the internal perception of stress is changing but not entirely.

In that case, as we push the boundaries of our capabilities at the edge or beyond what we’ve been capable of for so long, we have to listen during, after, and the day following those activities.

Three Checkpoints

It gives us three points of conscious consideration of how we are feeling.

It slows us down, allows us to view how we are feeling, and balances out those moments when we may forget how much we are pushing ourselves because we enjoy the activity.

We only have to do this because pushing ourselves to continue despite the pain was the behaviour we involved ourselves in at the time the pain started.

We didn’t do it on purpose, but now that our brain and body have that programme, we have to consciously and purposely reprogram ourselves to regain that freedom despite our compulsion to do more because we want to.

Ask Yourself These Questions

Have you been damaged by all the activities you undertook that created your ‘bliss’?

No. But you are experiencing pain from them.

Is that pain a sign of more damage or re-injury? No.

Is it unpleasant? Yes

How do you interpret that sensation?

‘A mass of pain. I don’t know why. How do I deal with it?

Yes, your stress/thoughts are just the same, but actually, your reactions to your pain are probably just the same.

You are frustrated and exasperated with it.

You are questioning whether it will ever end.

Why did it happen to you?

And why does it continue to happen?

Why does it spoil your pleasant experiences in the way it does?

A Sense Of Frustration

I’m elaborating, and I don’t know your circumstances, but the sense I get from your explanation of what has happened is that you are frustrated with your situation despite your progress.

That frustration, as well as any other negative interpretation you have about your pain, palpably contributes to the pain which triggers that frustration.

It isn’t your fault; it’s just that the behaviours creating your reactions are not as evident to you as they may be to someone else reading your words.

Name The Emotion

Pain is an emotion, and if we can name or note that emotion and learn how to process that emotion in a tiny, healthy way and make a habit of that, then we automate that self-care processing, which allows most people a life free from persistent pain.

‘I can’t think of anything particular that could be triggering.’ 

That is because the trigger isn’t in the thinking part of your brain; it is unconscious.

It is the unconscious behaviour that you must shine a light on. This reply should shine some light on it and allow you to deal with the frustration you may feel about your situation.

It’s tough to hear this said back to you, but you have to control how you feel about your pain. If that’s a big ask, then start small.

No Obvious Stressors

It is excellent if no other obvious external stressors influence pain. Still, after the period when the pain started, and for the last fourteen years of those neural pathways being reinforced as they have, they no longer need an external stressor to reach the threshold for firing.

That protective pathway is triggered by a stressful perception that you are currently in and how you interpret your current physical reality.

And if that means you still fear the unknown basis for your pain, the resentment you may feel because it spoils or comes after your ‘bliss’ and frustrates you with its persistence, then that can be enough of a circumstance to make your journey of recovery longer.

Sensitive To Chemistry

It is such a sensitive pathway that the stress chemical which comes with excitement and the things you enjoy can also trigger pain.

Excitement and fear are the same chemical cocktail that presents potential overload to the organism. But this only happens because when the pain originated, those stress chemicals were at such a level that it presented a real threat to the organism's survival. 

Any Cue Counts

Any cue representing a return to those times is a cue to trigger pain and prevent the organism from going back there. Even a cue that you consciously enjoy and perhaps don’t understand its association with pain.  

But because the pain is physical and comes without a meaning that makes sense, it confuses the person and spins them into a situation of fear and frustration again. The organism gets its wish and remains safe. The person’s conscious reality is a prison.

So, to counter this, we have to set our goals but work towards them with self-care and compassion.

Not frustration and not fear. Expose ourselves to those things we know are good for us and calm our nervous system if it overreacts. Thought, breathing, movement and emotion.

Thorough Regulation

All need regulating to control our innate and habitual desire to push through until we realise we can feel great about ourselves in a calm, long-term, nourishing, non-destructive way.

No, it doesn’t give us the immediate high of adrenaline we crave, but it gives us balance to that adrenaline when it appears in our life, from both good and bad situations that trigger the stress response within us

Having that balance brings liberation from pain with less effort than we could ever have imagined.

What’s next?
Take Your First Step to Recovery.

Drew Coverdale
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