If someone promises to eliminate your pain forever, run the other way. They're lying to you.
No rehab professional—no matter how skilled—can prevent you from ever feeling pain again. Yet scroll through social media or Google "injury recovery," and you'll see endless promises: "Follow this plan and be pain-free!" "Get these adjustments and never hurt again!" "Stick to this protocol for permanent relief!"
I'm here to tell you the truth: the pain-free life is a myth.
But here's the good news—that doesn't mean you're doomed to chronic suffering. Our bodies are incredible healing machines with an amazing capacity to recover, adapt, and grow stronger. The goal isn't zero pain forever. The goal is building a body resilient enough to bounce back quickly when pain inevitably shows up.
Pain Is a Normal Part of Being Human
Pain is uncomfortable, unpleasant, and something we naturally want to avoid. But it's also completely normal. Every human will experience pain at some point. What separates those who overcome it from those who don't? How we respond and adapt.
Pain isn't the enemy—it's information. The question is whether we're able to interpret what our body is actually telling us.
Pain vs. Injury: They're Not Always the Same Thing
When injury = pain
Roll your ankle, and the pain you feel is your body's way of telling you to stop stressing those damaged tissues. That's pain doing its job. If you keep stomping on that injured ankle, you're asking for a slow, incomplete recovery. Rest it appropriately, and your body goes through its predictable healing process: inflammation cleans out damaged tissue, new tissue gets laid down, and eventually that tissue remodels itself stronger than before.
When pain ≠ injury
Here's where it gets confusing—you can have pain without any tissue damage. People experiencing chronic pain can undergo nervous system changes that create pain in the absence of actual injury. That's why you can get an MRI showing nothing wrong but still have very real knee or back pain. There's no structural damage, but the pain is absolutely legitimate.
In these cases, pain becomes harder to interpret. That's exactly when you need a professional to help you understand what your body is actually telling you.
Pain Without Injury: The Hidden Generators
Your body can generate pain from sources that don't involve inflammation or injury:
- Active trigger points in muscles
- Stiffness and restricted mobility between joints and spinal segments
- Irritated nerve roots
- Movement compensations built up over years
- Low-level stress that compounds day after day
These pain generators often don't have a single "incident" you can point to. Instead, they're the result of movement errors in daily life and cumulative stress over time. There isn't "one thing" that caused it—it's a compounding effect. (I dive deeper into this in my article on the I3 Model of Pain - How Small Stressors Create Big Problems.)
What We're Actually Building: Resilience and Capacity
Our goal in rehab isn't eliminating pain forever—that's impossible. Instead, we're building resilient tissue with high capacity.
I recently heard entrepreneur Alex Hormozi define resilience as "the time it takes for your body to return to it's baseline." He was talking about mental toughness, but it applies perfectly to physical pain too.
Resilience = How quickly you bounce back after a pain episode
Capacity = How much stress your tissues can handle before injury occurs
We want your body's capacity so high that it takes a massive amount of load before you even approach the injury threshold. And when something does tweak, we want your resilience so strong that you're back to baseline fast—not sidelined for weeks or months.
Building Capacity Through Intentional Training
Intentional exercise is how we build both capacity and resilience. But you can't do it overnight.
Your muscles, tendons, bones, ligaments, and nerves are all adaptable tissues. However, they respond to stress differently and on completely different timelines. Exercise is a "good stress"—it's necessary for adaptation. But understanding how to properly stress each tissue type is key to creating lasting solutions.
This starts with thoroughly understanding your pain and getting to the root cause. When we know which tissue is involved and what its current capacity is, we can create a progressive plan that not only gets you back to your pre-injury baseline but dramatically exceeds it.
Creating the Optimal Healing Environment
Resilience isn't just about doing the right exercises—it's also about stopping the things that keep irritating your tissues.
If you keep stomping on an injured ankle, it won't heal. If you keep stretching an already-irritated tendon, you're making things worse. Tendons need proper mechanical stimulation (muscle contraction) to heal properly—but if you don't understand that and keep doing what feels "right" (like stretching), you'll decrease resilience and prolong recovery.
This is where expert guidance becomes critical. At Pack Performance PT, we help you truly understand your pain so you can stop the behaviors keeping you stuck. Then we create a clear, progressive plan to get you back to the things you love—stronger than before.
The Choice You Get to Make
Pain is a normal part of being human. But here's what most people don't realize: we're largely in control of how much and how often we experience it.
Falling off your bike and breaking your arm? That's an accident.
Sitting at a desk all day, then trying to pull a PR deadlift without proper mobility, strength, or technique? That's a choice.
We can dramatically reduce injury risk and build strong, resilient tissue through intentional movement. Our bodies are capable of incredible things—but we have to earn the right to do hard stuff by preparing our tissues to handle those demands.
I don't expect you to figure this out alone. That's exactly why we take a fitness-forward approach to rehab at Pack PT. We drill down to the root cause of your pain, help you understand what's really going on, and create a long-term solution that increases your capacity far beyond baseline.
We want you to:
- Run that 5K without fear
- Go on that hiking trip with confidence
- Jump into group fitness classes knowing your body can handle it
- Say yes to physical challenges that make life meaningful
Pain Is Inevitable—But Fear Doesn't Have to Be
In the pursuit of doing hard things, pain is inevitable. Even wrapping yourself in bubble wrap and staying home can't protect you forever (and comes with a whole host of other problems).
So here's what I want you to consider: wouldn't you rather challenge yourself, say yes to adventures, and risk some bumps and bruises along the way?
The answer seems pretty clear to me.
Don't let the fear of pain keep you from living fully. By intentionally building your body's resilience and capacity, we won't eliminate pain—but we take control of it. We don't let it stop us from saying yes to the things that make life worth living.
Ready to build a body that can handle whatever you throw at it? At Pack Performance PT, we help motivated movers like you understand their pain, build resilience, and increase capacity so you can live without fear. Schedule a free consultation to start taking control of your recovery today.
Matthew Szymanski
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