It’s amazing how we now live in an age and culture where at the first sign of any type of muscular pain or discomfort the very first thing we reach for is the cabinet in search for some aspirin, ibuprofin, or any similar pain killer medication. Not that these are bad, but they do have their place……just not right or away or all of the time.

We all know that in order to push your muscle building efforts to the next level intense weight training coupled with the correct amount of calories is a must. Without these two factors in place you can pretty much forget about looking any different in a year from now. However, as a result of these gut-busting workouts some pain or muscular discomfort can form.

First off, if you know the proper way of warming up and stretching, including using proper exercise form, pain should be kept to a minimum. (Hopefully you aren’t one of these weight trainers that thinks that throwing around “big weight” in hopes of building muscle mass fast is the way to go…..). Getting that out of the way, exercise can in fact help alleviate chronic pain.

It’s effective because it increases blood flow, improves cardiovascular fitness, improves muscle tone and weight control, produces endorphins, which are natural painkillers released by the brain, and allows you to get better sleep.

Low resistance exercises will help to build muscle and improve overall conditioning. Notice I said “low resistance” in the sense that it should be back breaking weight. In my opinion, super heavy weight (in other words, any amount of weight that doesn’t allow you to complete more than 10-15 reps) is only good for building strength, NOT size. Lighter weight for higher reps is the way to go for muscle building and weight gain purposes……..which just so happen to help relieve chronic muscular pain……..a double whammy!!!!