You’re Stronger than you Think… and That Might Be the Problem!

Are you simultaneously fitter, yet more frustrated than you have ever been? We see you.

You train consistently. You know what you're doing. You can lift some decent weight. You feel strong. And yet...

Something always seems to hurt.

Nothing catastrophic. Nothing that necessarily stops you training…just enough to be really annoying.

• The knee that feels fine until you do that squat.

• The shoulder that behaves itself for three weeks and then objects to pressing overhead.

• The elbow that has developed an inexplicable hatred of push-ups.

• The Achilles that seems perfectly happy until you decide to run.

You sort one problem out, feel fantastic for a few weeks, increase your training...

…and another one appears. It's like your body has introduced a subscription service for “minor injuries.” Cancel one and another starts! 

Welcome to the Injury Carousel!

And here's the interesting thing: Sometimes the problem isn't that you're getting weaker.

It's that you're getting stronger. Your muscles got the memo. Your tendons didn't.

Getting stronger is one of the best things that can happen to your body. Strength gives you more physical capacity. It helps you maintain muscle, tolerate physical demands and continue doing the things you enjoy. So when your squat, deadlift, bench press (or running and cycling performance) improves, that's something to celebrate. But it creates an interesting problem.

The stronger and fitter you become, the more force and workload you're capable of producing. Your nervous system gets better at recruiting muscle. Your muscles get stronger. Your technique improves. Your confidence increases. Suddenly you're capable of doing considerably more than you were a year ago.

Meanwhile, your tendons and other connective tissues may be adapting at a slower rate. Your muscles are saying:

“We've got this.”

Your connective tissue is quietly saying:

“Have we considered perhaps not doing that 14 times?”

Your body doesn't adapt as one big unit. Different tissues respond to training in different ways and at different rates. This means your ability to produce force can improve before your ability to tolerate repeated exposure to that force has caught up.

Training age: the number nobody talks about

We spend a lot of time talking about chronological age. But when it comes to training, another number may be much more useful: Training age.

How long have you truly trained consistently? How much resistance training have you done? How many periods of stopping and starting?

Someone who has trained consistently for 15 years has a very different training history from someone who started two years ago. And someone who trained hard for ten years, took five years off and recently returned is another story altogether.

This matters because strength comes back quickly.

Muscle memory is real. You return to training. The weights start moving. The old confidence comes back. And then comes the dangerous sentence:

“Well, if I can do it again, I might as well carry on where I left off.” 

The problem isn't always the weight

Once somebody starts experiencing recurring niggles, there's a temptation to conclude:

“I must be lifting too heavy.”

But that's not necessarily the answer. Heavy training isn't inherently bad. In fact, if we want people to remain strong and capable, we should want them to continue challenging themselves. The question isn't:

“Is this weight heavy?”

It's:

“Have I built the capacity to handle this weight, this volume, this frequency and this rate of progression?”

Training stress isn't simply about the number on the bar. It's the whole package:

Load × volume × frequency × intensity × exercise selection × recovery.

Change one of those and you change the demand. Change several at once and you've potentially changed it dramatically. 

Then life gets involved

Training doesn't happen in a laboratory. You have work. Stress. Travel. Children. Long days. Bad nights. Illness.

You might spend eight hours at a desk and then expect your body to perform brilliantly in a heavy training session that evening. Sometimes it will. Sometimes it won't. Recovery is part of the equation. Not because you're fragile.

Because recovery is where adaptation happens.

Hormones are part of the picture too. They influence muscle, bone, connective tissue, sleep, energy and recovery. For women, hormonal changes associated with the menstrual cycle, perimenopause and menopause can be particularly relevant. Men experience hormonal changes too.

But we don't need to shout “IT'S HORMONES!” every time somebody's knee hurts.

Training history matters.

Sleep matters.

Stress matters.

Nutrition matters.

Previous injury matters.

How quickly you've increased your workload matters.

And sometimes, annoyingly, you can do everything right and still get a niggle.

That's biology.

The answer isn't to wrap yourself in bubble wrap

If you're now thinking:

“Right. So I'd better stop lifting heavy.” 

No. That's not the message. You need load.

Your body needs a reason to maintain and improve its physical capacity. Muscle needs challenging. Bones benefit from loading. Strength needs practising. Capacity needs building.

The answer isn't less training.

It's better-managed training.

There is a difference.

Earn the next jump.

The ability to perform something once tells us about performance. The ability to tolerate it repeatedly tells us about capacity. And capacity is what we're really trying to build.

Sometimes progression means consolidating.

Progress doesn't always have to mean more weight.

It can mean more repetitions. Better technique. More range of motion. More control. More consistency. Sometimes it's simply doing the same session again and having it feel easier.

You don't have to add weight every time you walk into the gym. But equally, you shouldn't be afraid to add it when you've earned it.

Progressive overload is still the goal.

We're just making sure the progression is something your whole body can adapt to. The goal isn't to create a body that never experiences discomfort. The goal is to create a body that is robust enough to deal with it.

So, how do you get off the Injury Carousel?

Start looking at the pattern rather than the individual ache or pain. Your body is giving you data. Sometimes you need to change the exercise, adjust the volume, improve your recovery or simply give things a little more time. And sometimes you need to stop trying to outsmart your body and listen to what it's telling you.

Ideally: ask an expert. Preferably a Physiotherapist. A Doctor prescribes medicine, Physios prescribe exercise. They understand the nuances of training with an injury and are experts in recovery. A Physio teaches you why your body does what it does, and helps you make a plan going forward. 

That's how you get off the Injury Carousel. And that's how you keep training for the long term.

Kim Johnson, Co-Founder of Move Well and Physiotherapist