{"id":515954,"date":"2026-04-06T14:21:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T14:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/515954\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T14:21:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T14:21:07","slug":"the-real-reason-strength-training-helps-reduce-pain-and-rehab-injuries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/515954\/","title":{"rendered":"The real reason strength training helps reduce pain and rehab injuries"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

A well-planned and gradual exercise routine can help people lose the fear of movement which can set in after a prolonged period of pain or injury.Jacob Wackerhausen\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve got a bum knee or a sore back or a creaky shoulder, there\u2019s a good chance you\u2019ll be advised to get stronger. After all, exercise is the most effective treatment for a wide range of muscle and joint problems.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a flaw in this logic, according to a group of health care clinicians and researchers writing in the British Journal of Sports Medicine<\/a>. There\u2019s plenty of evidence that exercise really works to reduce pain, but it\u2019s not clear that increased strength is the main reason. Instead, exercise may have other rehab benefits that are more important to emphasize.<\/p>\n

For example, knee osteoarthritis is among the most common causes of pain and disability among adults, and targeted leg-strengthening exercise is considered a primary way to treat it. It makes sense: Stronger leg muscles should take some of the load off the knee joint.<\/p>\n

A recent meta-analysis<\/a>, which pooled results from 12 studies, did indeed find that exercise reduced pain and improved physical function in people with knee osteoarthritis. But the benefits didn\u2019t depend on how much stronger the patients got. In fact, increased strength explained just two per cent of the observed improvements.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s not nothing,\u201d says Jared Powell, a physiotherapist at Bond University in Australia and the lead author of the new study, \u201cbut it certainly doesn\u2019t seem to be the dominant mechanism of improvement.\u201d<\/p>\n

The same is true for a variety of other conditions: low back pain, rotator cuff problems in the shoulder, tendon pain in the knee or calf. In each case, studies find that strength training works, but that the benefits aren\u2019t proportional to how much strength you gain.<\/p>\n

Powell and his colleagues suggest several other reasons that exercise might help with these kinds of musculoskeletal pain. For example, physical activity is known to reduce inflammation throughout the body, which in turn might help ease the symptoms of inflammatory conditions like knee osteoarthritis.<\/p>\n

A well-planned and gradual exercise routine might also help people lose the fear of movement \u2013 what clinicians call kinesiophobia \u2013 which can set in after a prolonged period of pain or injury. And it can reduce pain catastrophizing, which is the fear that minor discomfort will inevitably spiral into more serious pain if you keep moving the affected joint or limb.<\/p>\n

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These latter explanations are harder to measure or quantify, but they reflect a growing belief among doctors and scientists that our experiences of pain depend not just on signals generated by our bodies, but also on how those signals are interpreted in our brains. And they suggest that the exact details of the rehab program you follow may not be as important as previously thought.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe context in which exercise is delivered is probably just as important as the exercise itself,\u201d Powell says. \u201cA clinician who builds trust, validates the patient\u2019s experience, and helps them reconnect with activities they value is probably doing more than any particular set-and-rep scheme.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say that building strength doesn\u2019t matter at all. Powell\u2019s physiotherapy practice focuses on shoulder pain, and resistance training is an important part of his treatment arsenal. \u201cThere\u2019s something about progressively lifting heavier weights that can powerfully shift a person\u2019s self-concept from \u2018fragile\u2019 to \u2018robust,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cI absolutely wouldn\u2019t dismiss that.\u201d<\/p>\n

But acknowledging that building strength isn\u2019t the only goal of a rehab program has a crucial benefit: It means that your pain might improve even if you don\u2019t seem to be getting stronger as quickly as you hoped. And it gives you some flexibility to tailor your exercise program to your own interests and goals.<\/p>\n

\u201cStrength changes may contribute to pain outcomes in some people, under some conditions,\u201d Powell says, \u201cbut as one ingredient in a much broader recipe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alex Hutchinson<\/a> is the author of The Explorer\u2019s Gene: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: A well-planned and gradual exercise routine can help people lose the fear of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[6647,102,14367,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-515954","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-fitness","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-noastack","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}