The line between “hard” and “dangerous” is not drawn by feeling but by two checkable signs. The first is a number: pain is rated from 0 to 10, where 0 means no pain and 10 means the worst pain imaginable. A rating of 0–2 means “carry on as usual”; 3–5 means “carry on, but add no load today or at the next session”; above 5 means the set stops and the load drops by one step. The second sign is time: pain during an exercise must go away as soon as the exercise ends, and pain after a session must return to its starting level by the next morning. If it does not go away, or does not return, the load drops regardless of the number. Separately there are signs after which a session does not start at all: pain at rest, night pain, numbness, weakness, disturbed pelvic organ function, injury with a clear mechanism, fever, unexplained weight loss. The warm-up, meanwhile, is not a ritual but a standard: 8–12 minutes on the RAMP protocol, whatever the length of the session.
The question first, the answer second
Two people complain of the same thing: the knee, pain 4 out of 10 in the squat. For the first, the coach changes the range of motion, takes some weight off and finishes the session. The second he stops, and writes a referral to a doctor.
The number is identical. Why are the decisions different?
Give yourself twenty seconds to guess: trying to answer before the explanation is remembered better than re-reading.
Pain in the gym is measured on one scale, and it has one threshold
The state retraining programme for coaches uses a single pain scale throughout: the numerical rating scale 0–10. The client states the value, the coach writes it down. There is one threshold, and it is 5. Three and four are not thresholds: they are the upper part of the “acceptable” zone.
| Rating on the 0–10 scale | Zone | What the coach does |
|---|---|---|
| 0–2 | safe | the load is performed and may be increased by the usual progression rule |
| 3–5 | acceptable | the load is performed but is not increased, neither in this session nor in the next |
| above 5 during the exercise or immediately after it | high risk | the set is stopped, the load drops by one step |
“Drop by one step” is not “cancel the workout”. It means removing one variable: range of motion, weight, tempo or volume. One, not all at once.
How pain behaves over time matters more than how strong it is
This is where our two clients part ways. Besides the number, the pain-monitoring model sets three conditions of time, and each of them on its own is a reason to reduce the load:
- pain during the session did not go away immediately after the exercise ended;
- pain had not returned to its starting level by the next morning;
- pain or stiffness is building up from week to week: if this repeats after two adjustments of the load, the coach must issue a written referral to a doctor.
The answer to the opening question: in the first client the pain vanished the moment the set ended, and by morning the knee was as it had been the day before. In the second, the same 4 out of 10 persisted after the session and had been growing for the third week running. Same number, different behaviour over time, different decisions.
One sentence for the client: “Hard is when it is difficult. Dangerous is when the pain does not leave on time.”
When the session does not start at all
Some signs make the scale irrelevant, because the question has stopped being a training question. The session does not start, or stops immediately, and the person receives a written referral to a doctor, if any one of the following is present:
- pain at rest or at night;
- numbness or weakness in an arm or a leg;
- disturbed function of the pelvic organs;
- injury with a clear mechanism: a fall, a blow, a twisted joint;
- fever and acute infection; at a temperature of 37.5 °C and above no session is held;
- unexplained loss of body weight.
From the client handout, issued in a single wording that may not be rewritten: “I do not make diagnoses, I do not name the cause of your pain and I do not promise to remove it. I manage the load.”
How to warm up properly: 8–12 minutes and four phases
In the programme the warm-up is a standard, not the coach’s taste. The whole RAMP warm-up takes 8–12 minutes, whether the session lasts 60, 45 or 30 minutes.
| Phase | Task | Minutes |
|---|---|---|
| R — Raise | raise body temperature, heart rate and blood flow | 2–3 |
| A + M — Activate and Mobilise | switch on the target muscles, mobilise the joints through the range the work will use | 3–5 |
| P — Potentiate | build-up sets of increasing intensity towards the working weight | 3–4 |
| Whole warm-up | 8–12 |
Cool-down is 5–7 minutes: lowering intensity, normalising breathing, long static holds and setting the task for the next session.
Both edges of the standard are named as errors. Shorter than eight minutes and the Potentiate phase is the first to disappear, so the person reaches the working weight without build-up sets. Longer than twelve and the warm-up eats the main lift. A 60-minute session allots 10 minutes to the warm-up, a 30-minute session 8; when time is short, the accessory block is cut, not the warm-up.
What the warm-up and stretching do not do
The warm-up prepares you for work. It does not remove delayed-onset muscle soreness and it is not confirmed as a means of injury prevention in general fitness; selling it on those promises is expressly forbidden by the programme.
Static stretching before strength work is a separate story. Holding a muscle group for at least 60 seconds produces a voluntary force deficit of around 4.6 %, against roughly 1.1 % for shorter holds (Behm et al., 2016; confirmed by a systematic review with multilevel meta-analysis of acute effects, Warneke et al., 2024). Hence the practice: short stretching inside a dynamic warm-up is acceptable, long holds move to the cool-down. For gaining range of motion the dose is different: about 60 seconds per joint per day, 2–4 sets of 15–60 seconds, 5 days a week. At the same time, strength work through a full range produces gains in mobility comparable to stretching (Afonso et al., 2021), so the first mobility tool is the choice of exercise and working range, not a separate stretch.
Why trouble arrives in weeks 4–8, not on day one
The most common misfortune of a beginner is not a single catastrophe but an overtaking. Tissues adapt at different speeds: neuromuscular adaptation 2–4 weeks, visible hypertrophy 6–8 weeks, increased tendon stiffness and changes in ligament properties 8–12 weeks and often longer, with some studies showing meaningful change only by week 16, bone remodelling 3–6 months. Tendon collagen synthesis peaks roughly a day after loading and stays elevated for about three days (Miller et al., 2005), which is why gains come from regularly repeated load, not from one heroic session.
Hence the rule: the slowest tissue sets the speed of progression. Strength grows faster than the tendon that transmits it. The typical window of complaints in a beginner, and in someone returning after a break, is weeks 4–8: the weights have already grown, the tendon has not.
Soreness does not grade your workout, and it has a dangerous twin
Soreness is a side effect of the unfamiliar, not a measure of quality, and there is no link between how strong it is and how much you gain. A session after which the client cannot walk down stairs for three days is not a good session: it is a standard reason people drop out in the second or third week.
Severe soreness after a first workout has a dangerous twin: exertional rhabdomyolysis. It is promoted by eccentric work, training to failure, heat, dehydration and stimulants. The signs appear 24–72 hours later: cola-coloured urine, pain out of proportion to the work performed, swelling and loss of range. The coach does exactly four things here: recognise, stop the training process, refer to a doctor and document. A return to load only comes with the doctor’s written clearance.
Acute injury: what the coach does in the first hours
Signs for stopping a session immediately are deformity, inability to bear weight, crepitus. Complete rest as the standard has been replaced by the principle of optimal loading: protection, dosed load, ice, compression, elevation, with caution regarding prolonged cooling and painkillers. Reducing a dislocation is absolutely forbidden to a coach, and after a blow to the head the rule is “if in doubt, take them off the floor”, with no return to load the same day.
Where the coach ends and the doctor begins
This is not a formality but part of the profession. A coach may not: make a diagnosis or name the cause of pain; prescribe or hand over medicines, painkillers included; prescribe supplements or therapeutic diets; interpret lab results, ECGs or scans; reduce a dislocation; run rehabilitation; cancel or “soften” a doctor’s written restrictions. In all these cases the action is the same: recognise, stop, refer, document.
The standards in this article come from the 720-hour retraining programme for coaches and its appendices; the programme is backed by the Bodybuilding and Fitness Federation of Uzbekistan.
What the gym taught in the golden era and what science says today
| What they said in the golden era | What the programme says today |
|---|---|
| “No pain, no gain” | Pain is not a measure. There is no link between soreness and gains, and three days of pain is the reason a beginner leaves the gym |
| “You warmed up if you sweated: five minutes on the treadmill and go” | The warm-up is 8–12 minutes and four phases. Potentiate is the first to be dropped, and the lifter reaches the working weight without build-up sets |
| “Stretch properly before a heavy set” | Holds longer than 60 seconds per muscle group reduce voluntary force. Long stretching moves to the cool-down |
| “It hurts — put up with it, it will pass” | Putting up with it is allowed up to 5 on the scale, and only if the pain goes as soon as the exercise ends and is back to baseline by morning |
| “Injury means ice and complete rest” | Complete rest has been replaced by the principle of optimal loading; prolonged cooling and painkillers are now treated with caution |
| “Stretching protects you from injury” | Range of motion, yes. Injury prevention in general fitness is not confirmed, and must not be promised |
What is still open
An honest text has to name the limits of knowledge. Injury prevention through warming up and stretching in general fitness remains unconfirmed rather than disproved: the data are insufficient. The optimal dose of myofascial release has not been established. The spread in tendon adaptation timelines is wide: in some studies meaningful change is visible by weeks 8–12, in others only by week 16. The pain-monitoring model itself grew out of rehabilitation research and is carried over to ordinary gym complaints as a working decision of the programme, not as a proven universal norm.
Myths
- “No pain, no gain.” Pain is a side effect, not a measure. The measure is the weight and reps in the logbook growing month by month.
- “I stretched, so I warmed up.” Static stretching is not a warm-up, and in long holds before heavy work it gets in the way.
- “It hurts — roll it out and keep training.” The roller gives an acute gain in range, but it does not “break up adhesions” or “flush out lactic acid”. Pain at rest and at night is not solved with a roller.
- “An experienced coach can tell me what is hurting.” Naming the cause of pain is a diagnosis, whatever the disclaimers attached to it.
- “Dark urine after a first hard workout just means I drank too little.” Cola-coloured urine together with pain out of proportion to the load is a red flag, not a sign of effort.
Test yourself
- Which single threshold on the pain scale changes the coach’s decision?
- The client says 3 out of 10, but the pain had not gone by morning. What do you do?
- Two days after a first leg workout the client writes about dark urine. What happens next?
Answers: there is one threshold, and it is 5. Pain that has not returned to baseline by morning drops the load by one step regardless of the number. With cola-coloured urine, training stops and the client goes to a doctor.
You can test all of this on yourself at PROFORM DINAMO: Tashkent, Mirzo Ulugbek Avenue 8a. The club is open around the clock, a club tour is free, bookings on +998 94 045 54 48.