Pain-aware training

How to Keep Training When Your Back Hurts: A Pain-Aware Lifter's Guide

By Devin Smith, NCSF-CPT · Precision Nutrition L1 · Updated August 2026

First, the necessary line, and I mean it: this article is general education, not medical advice. Sharp pain, numbness or tingling down a leg, pain that wakes you at night, or pain after trauma belongs in front of a physician or physical therapist, not under a barbell. What follows is for the far more common situation — the cranky, achy, "it talks to me when I deadlift" back that has you wondering whether to push through or quit training entirely.

Both of those instincts are wrong, and they're wrong in opposite directions.

The two bad defaults

"Push through it" treats pain as weakness leaving the body. Sometimes you get away with it. Often you convert a two-week irritation into a six-month problem, because you kept loading the exact pattern that was complaining.

"Rest until it's gone" feels responsible but usually backfires too. Total rest detrains everything that was protecting your back in the first place — and for most non-specific back pain, appropriate movement is part of what resolves it. You come back weaker, stiffer, and more afraid of the movement than when you stopped. Fear of movement is its own risk factor.

The third option: train around, not through

Pain-aware training keeps the stimulus and changes the delivery. Three dials, in the order I usually turn them:

1. Range. Full-depth hurts, partial doesn't? Own the pain-free range and load it. Elevate the deadlift (blocks or rack pulls), box-squat to a height you control, press within the arc that stays quiet.
2. Angle / variation. Conventional deadlift complains → trap-bar or hip hinge with dumbbells. Back squat complains → goblet or front-loaded patterns, which force a more upright torso. Standing overhead work complains → seated or landmine pressing.
3. Load & tempo. Cut the load, slow the eccentric, add a pause. Slower and lighter with perfect positions is still a training stimulus — often a better one than the grinding rep that set you off.

The rule that governs all three: work in ranges and patterns that don't provoke symptoms, and stop any movement that produces sharp pain. Mild, familiar, non-worsening discomfort that settles within a day is generally acceptable territory; anything sharp, radiating, or escalating is not.

What this looked like in real life

One of my longest-running clients came to me with years of martial arts mileage, chronic pain, and a body that wasn't cooperating. We didn't push through anything, and we didn't delete training. We rebuilt his regimen around his history, his body type, and what his joints would accept — and progressed it like any other program. In his words, within a year: dramatic improvement in pain management, physical endurance, attitude, and weight. The method wasn't magic. It was the three dials above, applied consistently, with someone watching the response and adjusting.

A simple week when your back is cranky

• Keep: carries (farmer and suitcase), glute bridges, split squats or step-ups, rows with chest support, pressing in pain-free arcs, walking — more than you think.
• Modify: hinge from elevation, squat to a box, swap barbells for dumbbells where the barbell dictates painful positions.
• Park for now: whatever specific movement reliably provokes it — parked, not deleted. It usually comes back within weeks, in stages: shortened range → light full range → normal loading.
• Support the boring stuff: sleep and general activity move pain science's needle more than any single exercise choice.

When to stop reading articles

If pain is sharp, radiating, numbing, progressive, or just plain scary — clinician first, coach second. If it's the manageable kind and you want training that respects it without going soft, that's a programming problem, and programming problems are solvable.

Coaching is not medical treatment. Consult a physician before beginning any new exercise program, and stop any movement that provokes sharp pain.