The Stoplight Method
How to make better decisions when exercise hurts.
You're halfway through a workout when your knee starts to hurt.
It's not unbearable. You can still squat, but the discomfort is noticeable. You pause between sets and try to decide what to do.
Should you keep going? Reduce the weight? Skip squats altogether? And if your knee hurts more tomorrow, does that mean you've made things worse?
It's a common situation, particularly when you're returning to an activity after an injury or a flare-up catches you by surprise. You're trying to decide whether to keep going or stop.
For years, advice about exercising with pain has often gone in one of two directions: if something hurts, stop doing it; or push through the discomfort and work through the pain.
Neither approach gives us enough information to make a good decision. That's the goal of this article: to give you a practical way to decide what to do when pain happens during or after an activity.
I call this the Stoplight Method. Rather than asking you to memorize pain ratings, it uses three familiar colors—green, yellow, and red—to help you make decisions based on what you're feeling, how you're moving, and how you respond afterward.
The purpose isn't to ignore pain or convince you that every movement is safe. It's to help you recognize when you can continue, when you should pay closer attention, and when it's time to stop a particular movement.
Ultimately, I want you to have the knowledge and confidence to make these decisions independently so you can keep building the physical capacity to do the things you enjoy.
Pain Doesn't Always Mean Damage
Before we get into the Stoplight Method itself, it's important to understand something about pain.
How much something hurts isn't always an accurate measure of how much physical damage has occurred.
Think about the last time you had a paper cut or stepped on a LEGO. A small injury can produce a surprising amount of pain. Meanwhile, changes within a joint or tendon can sometimes exist without causing much discomfort.
One study makes this point especially well. In 2019, Barreto and colleagues performed MRI scans of both shoulders in 123 people who reported pain in only one shoulder. Many structural findings appeared frequently on both the painful and pain-free sides. For example, a shoulder surgeon reviewing the scans identified rotator cuff tendinopathy in 74.8% of painful shoulders and 73.0% of pain-free shoulders. The same study also found that full-thickness tears and shoulder-joint osteoarthritis were more common on the painful side. [12]
This doesn't mean imaging findings are unimportant or that injuries don't matter. It means the presence of a finding—and even the amount of pain someone feels—needs to be understood alongside their symptoms, strength, movement, medical history, and everyday function.
How pain works
Throughout your body, specialized nerve endings detect potentially harmful conditions. Excessive mechanical pressure, extreme temperatures, or certain chemical changes can activate these sensors, sending information through the nervous system. This process is called nociception.
Nociception is important, but it isn't the same thing as pain.
Pain is the experience that emerges as your nervous system processes information within the broader context of your health, environment, and previous experiences. Pain is real, and it can be associated with injury, but it isn't a direct measurement of tissue damage. [1]
That means your experience of pain is influenced by more than what's happening in the specific area that hurts.
A recent injury, poor sleep, accumulated fatigue, stress, previous experiences with pain, and your expectations about an activity can all influence how much pain you feel. None of those factors allows us to assume the pain is harmless, and no single factor explains every person's symptoms.
Why the same exercise can feel different on different days
Imagine you're recovering from a period of low back pain.
One day, you play pickleball at your local club and feel a little discomfort. You finish the match, recover normally, and go about your day.
The following week, you go back to the same club, play with the same group, and your back feels more uncomfortable.
What changed?
Maybe you slept poorly. Maybe you've been sitting more than usual. Perhaps your overall activity increased, work picked up and you're more stressed than usual, or you're still recovering from another demanding day. It's also possible that something about your back has changed.
Pinpointing exactly why you have pain on one day and not another can be complex. And when we believe that every painful sensation represents damage, activity can become difficult to navigate.
A little discomfort during a squat might lead someone to abandon squatting for weeks. A twinge during a run might convince someone that running is no longer an option. A sore shoulder after playing more pickleball than usual might make someone think the sport itself is the problem and they need to quit.
Sometimes stopping or modifying activity is appropriate. But when avoidance is based primarily on the assumption that all pain equals injury, it can unnecessarily limit the activities we enjoy and the opportunities we have to build strength, endurance, and confidence.
That's why understanding pain is important and why Pain Neuroscience Education has become such a meaningful part of how I practice. As we've learned more about pain, we've learned that it involves the brain and nervous system, is influenced by many factors, and doesn't provide a direct measure of tissue damage.
Understanding how pain works can help you interpret symptoms with more nuance and approach appropriate activity with less fear and more confidence.
But education alone isn't the goal. Enjoying the activities you love—and knowing what to do when pain occurs—is what matters. That brings us to the Stoplight Method.
What Is the Stoplight Method?
The Stoplight Method is a simple framework for deciding what to do when an activity starts to hurt.
I use the same colors as a traffic light. You don't need to remember a separate numerical scale. The question is what the discomfort is doing, how it's affecting your movement, and how you respond afterward.
GREEN Go
Mild or no discomfort, moving normally.
Keep going.YELLOW Pay attention
Manageable discomfort that isn’t worsening or affecting movement.
Continue when appropriate; monitor and adjust.RED Stop
Significant or worsening pain, or meaningful functional change.
Stop that movement for the session.Your symptoms, movement, recovery, and medical circumstances matter more than a color by itself.
The colors are a practical guide, not a test that can tell you whether something is injured. Your history and the situation still matter, and I'll explain when you shouldn't rely on the method alone later in this article.
Green: Keep going
Green means little or no discomfort. Maybe you notice a little tightness or an occasional sensation, but it isn't really grabbing your attention or changing how you move.
Imagine you're performing a rowing exercise and notice mild shoulder discomfort. It isn't increasing, your strength and movement feel unchanged, and nothing else seems concerning.
That's green.
You don't necessarily need to change the exercise just because you're aware of a mild sensation. Continue with your plan and pay attention to how you feel afterward.
Yellow: Continue when appropriate, but pay attention
Yellow is where people often get confused.
Your knee is uncomfortable during a squat. Should you stop?
Not necessarily.
Maybe the discomfort is noticeable but bearable. It isn't getting worse, you're still moving normally, and reducing the weight, taking a little extra rest, or shortening the activity makes it feel better.
That's yellow.
You might continue with the same exercise, reduce the weight, shorten the range of motion, take a longer break before the next pickleball match, or make another adjustment. Then see how you feel afterward and the next morning.
The important thing is that you're paying attention and making a deliberate decision rather than automatically pushing harder or giving up.
Yellow gives you room to make an informed decision. It isn't a requirement to exercise through pain.
Red: Stop that movement for the session
Red is when pain becomes significant, continues to worsen, or starts affecting how you move or function.
For red, my rule is straightforward: stop the movement that's producing that response for the remainder of the session.
If you're squatting and your knee pain becomes severe, we're not going to keep trying different squat weights to see whether you can push through.
Squatting is finished for that session.
But red doesn't automatically mean your entire workout is over.
Depending on what you're feeling, you might still be able to train your upper body, work on a different physical capacity, or do something else that doesn't aggravate the area. You don't need to abandon every training goal because one movement hurts.
A red response tells you to stop and reconsider the demands of that movement. It doesn't tell you exactly why the pain happened. Poor sleep, accumulated activity, a sudden training increase, or an injury may be relevant, but the color alone can't distinguish among them.
And you don't have to experience severe pain to make a red-light decision. A meaningful loss of strength or control, substantial worsening the next morning, or symptoms that keep building week after week may also mean it's time to stop the affected movement and reconsider your approach.
The Three Checkpoints That Make the Stoplight Method Work
The colors help you make a decision in the moment, but the method becomes much more useful when you look at how your body responds over time.
I use three checkpoints: during the activity, the following morning, and week to week.
Check 1: During the activity
First, pay attention to what you're experiencing while performing the movement.
Where do you feel the discomfort? Is it staying the same or getting worse? Are you moving normally, or is the activity becoming difficult in a way it wasn't before?
For example, a runner might notice manageable knee discomfort during the first few minutes of a run. It remains stable, their stride feels normal, and they decide to keep going while monitoring it.
That's a yellow response.
Now imagine the same runner notices new weakness, instability, or a loss of control, even though the pain itself isn't especially intense.
That's different. A meaningful change in function can make this red regardless of the amount of pain.
The color isn't just about how uncomfortable something feels. How you're moving matters, too.
Check 2: The following morning
Next, pay attention to how you feel the following morning.
Let's say you've been dealing with a recurring knee complaint. Usually it feels fairly comfortable, so you'd consider it green.
During a workout, it moves into yellow. You continue, finish the session, and go home.
The next morning, your knee is back to how it usually feels, and you're moving normally.
That's useful information. The exercise produced some discomfort, but your usual symptoms settled without an apparent loss of function.
Now consider a different response.
You wake up with substantially more knee pain than usual. Walking downstairs has become difficult, and the knee is much more irritable.
That suggests the previous session may have demanded more than the area currently tolerates. Treat that as a red response when planning your next exposure. Don't automatically repeat the same activity at the same dose. Think about whether the next session needs to be lighter, different, postponed, or assessed more closely.
Maybe you need another day of recovery. Maybe you added more matches or training sessions than usual. Perhaps sleep or stress has affected your recovery. The point isn't to guess a single cause—it's to use what you know to make a better decision next time.
Notice that we're comparing symptoms with your normal baseline, not assuming everyone starts completely pain-free. If you live with persistent discomfort, the relevant question is whether your usual symptoms and function have meaningfully changed.
Ordinary muscle soreness following exercise isn't necessarily the same thing as a worsening pain complaint. I'll explain that distinction shortly.
Check 3: Across successive weeks
The final checkpoint is the longer-term trend.
An individual workout can feel better or worse for many reasons. I don't want you making every training decision based on one day.
Imagine you're returning to lifting after months of back pain.
During the first week, you experience some discomfort, but you recover normally.
The second week feels similar. You perform a little more work, and the next-day response is still manageable.
By the fourth week, you're lifting more weight and participating more consistently in your normal activities.
That's meaningful progress, even if you occasionally experience discomfort.
Now consider the opposite pattern. Every week the same exercises produce more pain, recovery takes longer, and everyday activities are becoming more difficult.
That's a red trend. Rather than repeating the same plan indefinitely, reconsider the demands and seek an assessment if the worsening continues or function is declining.
The three checkpoints help you tell the difference between a temporary fluctuation and a pattern that needs a change.
Is It Pain or Normal Post-Workout Soreness?
This is an important distinction because not every uncomfortable sensation after exercise means something has gone wrong.
If you've ever returned to the gym after a few weeks away, you've probably experienced delayed-onset muscle soreness, or DOMS.
You finish a workout feeling reasonably good. Later that day or the following morning, your muscles begin feeling sore. By the next day, sitting down in a chair might feel surprisingly difficult.
That doesn't automatically mean you've injured yourself.
What ordinary muscle soreness often feels like
Muscle soreness commonly develops after unfamiliar or unusually demanding activity, particularly when your muscles do a kind or amount of work they aren't used to.
It often becomes noticeable within the first day, can be most pronounced around 24–72 hours after exercise, and generally improves over the following days. [11]
For example, after a demanding session of lunges, you might experience soreness throughout your quadriceps and glutes. Those muscles may feel tender, stiff, or uncomfortable when you move.
Why soreness and the Stoplight Method aren't exactly the same thing
Imagine you have an existing knee complaint.
You perform a new workout containing lunges and squats.
The next morning, your quadriceps are sore, but the familiar pain around your knee is unchanged.
That's different from waking up with substantially worse pain in the knee itself, new swelling, or difficulty doing activities that were manageable the day before.
The first situation may be ordinary post-exercise muscle soreness. The second suggests you should reconsider the previous workout or have the knee assessed.
Don't automatically classify expected muscle soreness as yellow or red just because you're more sore the next morning.
Consider where you feel it, the type of discomfort, what you did the day before, how familiar the sensation is, how it's affecting your function, and whether it's improving.
These differences aren't always obvious. Unusual or severe pain, significant swelling, substantial weakness, or symptoms that aren't improving as expected may need medical evaluation.
My goal isn't to teach you to diagnose every sensation yourself. It's to help you recognize what information matters.
What Should You Actually Do When Exercise Hurts?
Understanding the colors is helpful. Knowing how to respond to them is what makes the method practical.
Exercise isn't just an on-or-off decision. We can change how demanding an activity is while still working toward the same goal.
When you're in yellow
Suppose you're squatting and notice manageable knee discomfort. You're moving normally and the pain isn't increasing, but it becomes more noticeable with each set.
You don't automatically have to stop, but there are several ways to adjust what you're doing.
Reduce the load. If you're squatting with 100 pounds, try something lighter. A lower weight may make the movement more manageable.
Change the range of motion. Squat to a more comfortable depth for now instead of forcing the deepest position you can reach.
Reduce the total volume. Instead of four sets of five repetitions, you might complete two or three sets, or fewer repetitions per set.
Adjust your speed or tempo. Changing how quickly you move can change the demands of an exercise, although moving more slowly doesn't always make it easier.
Choose a different variation. A supported squat, step-up, or another lower-body exercise may let you work on similar capacities more comfortably.
The right adjustment depends on the activity and how you respond. A variation that feels better doesn't necessarily tell you what caused the discomfort in the first place.
Sometimes the best decision is to continue with the planned activity and monitor your response. Other times, a small change can let you complete useful training without unnecessarily aggravating symptoms.
When you're in red
Let's return to the squat.
This time, the knee pain becomes significant and continues to increase.
The decision is to stop squatting for the rest of the session. Don't keep attempting the same movement with different weights to test whether the pain disappears.
Instead, consider what else might be appropriate.
Perhaps you can complete an upper-body workout that doesn't aggravate the knee. Maybe another activity feels comfortable and doesn't reproduce the problem. Or perhaps the symptoms are significant enough that you need to stop training for the day.
What matters is that stopping one movement doesn't automatically require giving up on every training goal.
Before your next session, think back through what happened. Was the weight higher than usual? Did you increase training frequency or total volume? Have symptoms been worsening for several weeks? Was there an unexpected change in strength or function?
You may need to change the next session's exercise, load, or duration. If the symptoms are unusual, persistent, or affecting function, get an appropriate assessment rather than guessing.
Red tells you what to do now: stop the provoking movement for the session. It doesn't identify the exact cause, and it doesn't mean you can never do that movement again.
Putting the Stoplight Method Into Practice
Let's look at two situations where you could apply these principles in everyday training. They're examples, not universal exercise prescriptions.
Example 1: Knee discomfort while squatting
Imagine someone who enjoys strength training but has been dealing with recurring knee pain.
Their goal is to squat regularly again and eventually become stronger than they were before their symptoms began.
Right now, they're performing goblet squats.
During the second set, the knee becomes uncomfortable. The movement is still controlled, and the discomfort isn't getting worse.
They're in yellow.
They decide to continue while paying attention. After the workout, they monitor the knee and see how it feels the following morning.
If the knee is back to its normal baseline and function remains stable, that's useful information for the next session. They don't necessarily need to eliminate squats simply because they felt discomfort.
Now imagine that during the following workout, their knee pain becomes significant and keeps increasing.
That's red.
They stop squatting for that session and focus on other appropriate training.
Before their next squat session, they review the response and decide whether to reduce the load, change the range, use a different variation, or seek further assessment. The goal is to find a manageable starting point again, not to force the movement back into yellow that same day.
Over time, the objective remains the same: progressively build the strength and capacity needed for the activities they enjoy.
We're not trying to keep someone permanently inside a particular color. We're trying to help them become more capable.
Example 2: Returning to running after back pain
Consider someone who used to run several miles multiple times per week.
They developed low back pain, stopped running, and have been hesitant to begin again.
During an early run, they notice familiar back discomfort. It's manageable, doesn't keep increasing, and isn't changing their stride.
That's yellow. They decide to continue and complete their planned run.
The next morning, their back feels similar to its usual baseline.
They continue progressing over subsequent weeks, adjusting running volume and recovery based on their overall response. Eventually, they can run farther and more consistently.
Now consider an alternative.
After increasing their running duration, they wake up with substantially worse back pain. Their usual daily activities have become more difficult.
That's a red next-morning response.
Rather than automatically repeating the previous run, they reconsider the next one. It may need to be shorter, postponed, or replaced with another appropriate activity while their back settles and they review what happened.
A good plan allows you to make adjustments without treating every setback as the end of the process.
The objective isn't simply to run without discomfort tomorrow. It's to develop the capacity to return to consistent running over time.
How Do You Know When It's Time to Progress?
The Stoplight Method helps you judge whether exercise is producing a manageable response.
But tolerating exercise is only part of the process.
Physical capacity improves when we progressively challenge the abilities we want to develop and allow adequate recovery.
If your goal is to become stronger, your training eventually needs to provide an appropriate strength stimulus. If you want to run farther, you need to develop the ability to tolerate more running. If you want to maintain your independence as you age, you may need to work on strength, balance, power, and other relevant physical qualities.
The Stoplight Method helps you make decisions while building those abilities.
Progression is more than adding weight
There are several ways to make an exercise more challenging.
You can increase resistance, perform more repetitions, increase the range of motion, add training volume, change movement speed, or introduce more demanding variations.
But increasing everything at once can make it hard to tell how your body responds.
A thoughtful plan focuses on the demands that matter most for your goal and progresses them at a rate you can reasonably adapt to. Each progression should have a purpose.
And remember: progress isn't only a lower pain score. It might mean lifting more weight, running longer, playing more pickleball, or getting through everyday activities with greater confidence. Those changes matter even if you occasionally experience manageable symptoms.
When the Stoplight Method Isn't the Right Tool
The Stoplight Method can be useful for deciding what to do during exercise, but it isn't a stand-alone guide for every injury, condition, or symptom.
For example, a suspected high-risk bone stress injury may require stopping the relevant loading even if discomfort seems mild. Someone recovering from surgery may have restrictions intended to protect healing tissue. Those instructions take priority over the colors.
New or progressive neurological problems, substantial weakness, loss of function, or symptoms suggesting a serious medical problem may require evaluation regardless of whether the pain feels green, yellow, or red.
Some warning signs need urgent medical attention. With back pain, new bladder or bowel dysfunction, numbness around the groin, or rapidly progressive leg weakness are examples.
I don't mention these situations to make ordinary exercise seem dangerous. The point is simply that a useful decision-making tool can't replace medical evaluation when the situation calls for it.
When monitoring pain too closely becomes unhelpful
There's another important limitation.
For some people with longstanding, widespread, or highly sensitive pain, constantly checking symptoms can become counterproductive.
If you're monitoring every sensation throughout the day, it may become difficult to focus on what you're actually trying to do.
In these situations, a different approach might make more sense. Rather than adjusting every activity based on how much it hurts in the moment, you might begin with a manageable activity quota and build consistency over time.
For example, someone who struggles with variable pain during walking might choose a realistic starting duration—say, 15 minutes—and repeat it consistently. Once that amount becomes manageable across days, they can gradually increase the duration or frequency based on overall function and recovery, rather than constantly checking whether each sensation has changed color.
That starting duration isn't a universal prescription, and the goal isn't to stay at 15 minutes forever or insist on being completely pain-free.
This doesn't mean ignoring pain. It means choosing a strategy that fits your experience and goals.
The Stoplight Method is a tool, and its usefulness depends on how and when you apply it.
Why the Stoplight Method?
The Stoplight Method draws on decades of research involving symptom monitoring, rehabilitation, and exercise. In 1997, Swedish researcher Roland Thomeé described a rehabilitation approach for patellofemoral pain that included education, exercise, and pain monitoring. In 2007, Karin Grävare Silbernagel and colleagues studied 38 people with Achilles tendinopathy. Both groups followed a strengthening program, but one group was allowed to continue running and jumping using a pain-monitoring approach while the other temporarily stopped those activities. Both groups improved, with no significant difference in their rate of improvement. Related monitoring approaches have also been used in neuromuscular exercise programs for people with hip and knee osteoarthritis. Craig Liebenson later helped popularize traffic-light language within rehabilitation education. [3–5, 9–10]
The broader research is important, too. A 2017 systematic review compared therapeutic exercise that allowed some pain with exercise kept pain-free. It found a small short-term advantage for painful exercise, but no clear long-term or functional advantage. A larger updated review published in 2025 included 16 randomized trials and found no clear difference between the approaches for pain or disability. Confidence in the evidence was low or very low. The takeaway isn't that exercise should hurt. It's that some discomfort during appropriately chosen exercise doesn't automatically prevent improvement, and painful exercise hasn't been shown to be consistently better than pain-free exercise. [6–7]
There's also something the research hasn't established: one set of universal stoplight boundaries that reliably separates safe activity from harmful activity. A 2020 review of lower-limb tendinopathy exercise programs found that pain-based progression rules were common but weren't supported by strong evidence establishing the best rule. The complete version of the Stoplight Method I teach—including its three checkpoints and emphasis on function—hasn't been validated as one standardized intervention for every condition. I use it as a practical framework informed by research and clinical experience, not as a diagnostic test or a guarantee that a movement is safe. [8]
How I Use the Stoplight Method at Optimize Chiropractic
At Optimize Chiropractic, the Stoplight Method is one part of a broader approach to helping people become more physically capable.
I start by asking what you want to be able to do. Maybe it's returning to running after back pain. Maybe it's gaining strength for golf, feeling confident playing pickleball again, or staying independent as you get older.
Then we find your starting point. I look at your symptoms and relevant history, but also at what you can currently do—your strength, mobility, balance, movement, and other abilities that matter for your goal.
From there, we build a plan. That might include progressive strength training, balance work, movement practice, education, and appropriate hands-on care.
If pain is part of the picture, I want you to understand it. Pain Neuroscience Education is important to me because I don't want you feeling that every ache means you must stop moving or book another appointment.
For example, if your goal is to return to squatting, we establish a manageable starting exercise and load. I teach you how to use green, yellow, and red during training, what to notice the next morning, and how to recognize whether you're progressing over the following weeks. As your strength and confidence improve, we increase the demands and adapt the plan based on how you're doing.
Over time, I want you to become increasingly comfortable making those decisions on your own.
I don't want you to feel that every symptom requires a visit or that you need someone else to approve every movement. I want you to understand your body, recognize when adjustments are appropriate, and develop the physical capacity to keep pursuing your goals.
The Goal Is to Keep Building Capacity
Some days, exercise will feel great.
Other days, you may notice discomfort, fatigue, or changes in how your body responds.
Pain doesn't automatically mean you need to stop everything. But it isn't something you should ignore, either.
The Stoplight Method gives you a practical way to respond.
Green: Keep going when you're comfortable and moving normally.
Yellow: Pay attention. You may be able to continue, monitor the response, or make an adjustment.
Red: Stop the affected movement for that session and reconsider the next exposure. You may still be able to do other suitable activities.
Remember the three checkpoints: during the activity, the following morning, and week to week.
When you combine those decisions with an understanding of pain, appropriate training, and gradual progression, you give yourself more opportunities to keep doing what matters to you.
The goal isn't to become an expert at assigning colors to pain. It's to become more capable of doing what you want to do.
Learn more about how I work at Optimize Chiropractic or book a complimentary consultation to talk about your goals.
References
- International Association for the Study of Pain. IASP Terminology and Revised Definition of Pain (2020). IASP Pain Terminology.
- Watson JA, et al. Pain Neuroscience Education for Adults With Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain: A Mixed-Methods Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Journal of Pain. 2019;20(10):1140.e1–1140.e22. doi:10.1016/j.jpain.2019.02.011.
- Thomeé R. A Comprehensive Treatment Approach for Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome in Young Women. Physical Therapy. 1997;77(12):1690–1703. doi:10.1093/ptj/77.12.1690.
- Silbernagel KG, Thomeé R, Eriksson BI, Karlsson J. Continued Sports Activity, Using a Pain-Monitoring Model, During Rehabilitation in Patients With Achilles Tendinopathy. American Journal of Sports Medicine. 2007;35(6):897–906. doi:10.1177/0363546506298279.
- Ageberg E, et al. Feasibility of Neuromuscular Training in Patients With Severe Hip or Knee Osteoarthritis: The Individualized Goal-Based NEMEX-TJR Training Program. BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders. 2010;11:126. doi:10.1186/1471-2474-11-126.
- Smith BE, et al. Should Exercises Be Painful in the Management of Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. British Journal of Sports Medicine. 2017;51(23):1679–1687. doi:10.1136/bjsports-2016-097383.
- Tran I, et al. Effectiveness of Painful Versus Nonpainful Exercise on Pain Intensity, Disability, and Other Patient-Reported Outcomes in Adults With Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain: An Updated Systematic Review With Meta-Analysis. Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy. 2025;55(8):1–11. doi:10.2519/jospt.2025.13253.
- Escriche-Escuder A, Casaña J, Cuesta-Vargas AI. Load Progression Criteria in Exercise Programmes in Lower Limb Tendinopathy: A Systematic Review. BMJ Open. 2020;10:e041433. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2020-041433.
- Liebenson C. The 4 Key Principles of the FPM Approach. First Principles of Movement. 2019. Read article.
- Liebenson C. Pain With Exercise: Is It Acceptable & If So How Much & For How Long? First Principles of Movement. 2020. Read article.
- Cleveland Clinic. Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS): What It Is & Treatment. Updated December 19, 2025. Read article.
- Barreto RPG, Braman JP, Ludewig PM, Ribeiro LP, Camargo PR. Bilateral Magnetic Resonance Imaging Findings in Individuals With Unilateral Shoulder Pain. Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery. 2019. doi:10.1016/j.jse.2019.04.001.