No Pain, No Gain – Axiom Or Half Truth?
April 30th, 2010
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“If little labour, little are our gains:
Man’s fortunes are according to his pains.”- Robert Herrick, Hesperides, 1650
“Gain with pain is good.
Gain without pain is better.”- me, just now
Above is a picture of my right arm, showing my battle scars from my first class of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. The bruises look much worse in real life, and I’ve got them on both arms, one side of my chest, one ankle, and one toe. But do pains imply gains?
Over the last couple of days, I took trial classes at two different BJJ schools, both of which looked great on paper. Both were fun and educational, but one of them barely made me break a sweat, while the other left me bruised, sore, and out of breath.
Which one do you think I signed up with? Which one would you have signed up with? I went with the second one (the pains), but I don’t think the most painful choice is always the best one.
Yes, some things require a struggle, and always quitting at the first sign of difficulty won’t serve you well. But it’s entirely possible to push to the point where additional pain becomes pointless or even counterproductive.
A common example is what weightlifters call overtraining. Some people think they need to do tons of sets every day and fight through the soreness, when in reality backing off and doing much less would give them more gains as well as less pains.
There’s a happy middle ground between cowardice and masochism. First, pick your battles (no sense in fighting for something that’s not important). Then, decide on a strategy (try to work smarter, not necessarily harder). Next, take what pain you must, but don’t mistake it for the goal. Finally, enjoy your gains, hopefully with as few pains as possible.
April 30th, 2010 at 1:18 am
True and true. Thanks for that pic whilst eating my breakfast lol. In all seriousness though I’ve been struggling a bit with this area. Pushing myself too hard in business and weightlifting all on one front at once.
April 30th, 2010 at 7:00 am
Oh boy, all my life I’ve “taken the hard way out,” making the assumption that harder = better. Sometimes the harder thing has been something that really was better, but – if I’ve really put myself through something tough then I find myself resenting people who went the easy route. Why am I studying while they’re partying? Why am I working hard and studying for certs while they’re.. playing?
Now that kids/job/house are getting most of my attention, I’m getting a lot better at deciding if something hard is really worthwhile. The bigger challenge for me is to remember that we all have choices, so if I decide to go the hard way, I don’t need to resent anyone else’s choice not to do so.
April 30th, 2010 at 10:46 am
This also brings up the question about what is considered pain (how painful does it need to be to be considered pain). Using your exerciese example:
“A common example is what weightlifters call overtraining….”
This is very true, but many more people think discomfort is pain and don’t go far enough. From my experience, both physically and mentally, people think they are in pain, but they really aren’t the majority of the time.
April 30th, 2010 at 10:47 am
“But do pains imply gains?” No. Abuse, for instance, is painful but there are better ways to gain wisdom. (Not that we don’t learn anything from abuse)
“Which one would you have signed up with?” Neither.
Sounds like Jiu-Jitsu has had its own unique development since it left Japan. Is there a reason why you picked this mode of marshal art over others?
April 30th, 2010 at 8:28 pm
Hi Hunter.
I used to be more against this quote being valid because I linked it more to the pain having to occur at the same time as the gain, but I would say that there is a distant relationship between the two. Usually, some form of pain provides the necessary motivation to then make a gain. Getting into a frustrating argument can later lead to making changes in who deals with who and how much of themselves they give to one another.
A child who comes from a poor upbringing has pain that can lead to substantial gains if he/she uses the motivation for putting out effort instead of passing on the pain.
May 1st, 2010 at 9:44 am
@ Richard, lol, hope you finished your breakfast OK. Having too much on your plate can be a problem, and sometimes you need to focus on fewer things to put more effort into the most important ones.
@ Christie, I can relate to resenting people who take the easy route. Because really, you can just sit back and do nothing, and your life will be almost as good as if you had done a lot more. But now, I just stay focused on myself and let people do their own thing, unless they ask for advice.
@ Chad, very true. I’ve seen lots of people in the gym who get on this machine (it’s kind of like a treadmill, but your feet are also going up and down to make an oval shape), and proceed at a ridiculously slow pace. They’re probably burning less calories than they would on a casual walk, and they’re certainly not in pain or discomfort, but they apparently think they’re doing something productive.
There are different kinds of pain, and you can have a different threshold for each. Someone might make lots of personal sacrifices for their business for example, but they might not want to experience any physical discomfort. And then someone might generally have a low threshold, but be willing to go past it if they see a good reason to.
@ Akemi, good point about abuse. When I used to hear people say that high risk means high reward, I used the counterexample of jumping out of a plane without a parachute. High risk, low reward.
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu actually evolved from judo, and there was just a lot of confusion about the name in Brazil. I picked it because of its high effectiveness (BJJ was shown to be vastly superior to most other martial arts in the Ultimate Fighting Championship), plus it can be practiced relatively safely compared to other practical arts (such as boxing).
@ Armen, I like that example of the poor child, showing that the pain and the gain can be separated by long periods. We all know that people born into money tend to lose it, because they never had to earn it.