Here's what you need to know...

Don't swap real training time for excessive foam rolling. It could make you more injury prone. Increase your aerobic capacity. If you fatigue too quickly while lifting, your form will suffer and increase your risk of injury. Set up for each lift and create tension in the body. Using lazy form, like relaxing in the bottom of a squat position, can make your lifts riskier. To avoid back injuries when deadlifting, use your lats and position your armpits over the bar at the start. Make sure your lats aren't tight, which can cause lower back pain. Take a day off. The pros do it, why shouldn't you?

Redefining Fun

Lifting weights isn't supposed to tickle.

No one who's ever performed a set of 20-rep squats or worked up to true 1-rep max on the deadlift has ever thought to him or herself, "Wow, that was fun. Let's do it again!"

If so, you're a sadistic bastard. And I want to hang out with you.

It's well accepted that in order to make consistent progress in the gym – whether your goals are more strength related or aesthetic – you need to push the body to levels and extremes it's never been to before.

Along the way your body is sometimes going to hate you. You tweak your knee one week, your shoulder flips you the middle finger after bench pressing on another week, and let's be honest: you haven't been DOMS-free since season one of Game of Thrones.

It's all good. It comes with the territory.

However, it's one thing to nix your squat session one day because your lower back is "a little tight," (you'll make up for it later in the week), and another thing altogether to be hurt and unable to train all the time.

Some people always seem to be hurt. Whether they're doing programs too advanced, not getting the technique right, always training to failure, or not knowing the difference between discomfort and injury, the list goes on.

Here are the lesser known reasons. Which one have you been overlooking?

1 – You're Foam Rolling Like It's Your Job

Pet Peeve: Telling people I co-founded a gym and them following up with "So, like, what, a CrossFit gym?" Pet Peeve: Poodles. I just don't like them. Pet Peeve: People who live on a foam roller.

Foam rolling is great. I do it myself, and I include it in just about every program I write for my clients and athletes. Tissue quality is important and foam rolling works. I don't know why it works, but it just does.

That said, whenever I start working with an athlete with a history of injuries I'll often stand back and watch him warm-up. Almost always he'll spend a minimum of 30 minutes on the foam roller hitting every muscle with painstaking detail.

Let's call it Delicate Flower Syndrome. Don't bother searching on PubMed. I made it up.

Some people have gotten so used to being hurt and have been so programmed into thinking the foam roller will solve all their problems, that they've become gun-shy and apprehensive to actually train and lift weights. "They've gone corrective" is another term that's used for them.

Use the foam roller, it's a tool, but if you find yourself spending more time with it than your significant other, you need to change your priorities.

2 – You Have No Aerobic Capacity

Okay, deep breaths. Relax. No one is trying to steal your gainz and say you have to go out and run a half marathon.

But a lack of work capacity (which ties into aerobic capacity) may be a reason why you're always hurt. Fatigue matters, and it will affect your performance when lifting – especially when training with high(er) reps.

The sooner someone fatigues, the sooner technique is going to break down. And having poor aerobic conditioning is going to be a factor, even if you're a powerlifter.

Developing a base level of aerobic work – sled/Prowler, repeated tempo runs, Airdyne, mobility/movement circuits – during the week has value.

Not only will you improve your conditioning and help to offset technique breakdowns, but it will also aid in overall recovery, assuming you don't overdo things.

And if you don't believe that aerobic conditioning has its place, just take look at coaches like Alex Viada who, on top of having elite level numbers in powerlifting (705 squat, 465 bench press, 700 deadlift) can also run a 4:15 mile while also competing in triathlons and Ultra Marathons. And he's jacked.

It may take some finagling on the programming side of things, but there's no reason why most lifters, most of the time, couldn't include some form of aerobic work 1-2 times per week. Don't worry, guys, you can keep your man card.

3 – You Lack Tension

Going back to the whole technique breaking down point, most of the time you can attribute it to one thing: a really poor set-up.