No pain, no gain: Positive perceptions of pain increase tolerance

We all acknowledge that there are times when running too far, too fast or too often is going to hurt.  I’m not talking about routine aches and pains or the occasional overuse injury, which can and should be carefully dealt with using appropriate prevention and treatment.

Rather, the pain I’m talking about is the kind we feel during the late stages of a marathon when our bodies are overworked, exhausted and all we want to do is to stop and be done with it. Or the pain experienced during lap 3 of a mile race (okay, any lap of a mile race is going to suck!) or the final kilometre of a 5K. Or even those hill sprints, track intervals or tempo portions of a hard workout.

Pain is inevitably a part of what we do as runners, but how we perceive that pain and our willingness to embrace it (at select times) may have important implications for our ability to manage, overcome and even find success from occasional pain and discomfort.

A recent study by neurologists at the University of Turin in Italy had participants tolerate a painful stimulus, induced by ischemia (i.e. a lack of blood flow) to the arm, for as long as possible before voluntarily giving up. One group was told about the dangers of the task and thus perceived pain as a negative or aversive experience. The other group were led to believe that the pain they felt could be useful and beneficial for the muscles. It was expected that this group would perceive the pain more positively and perhaps even consider it useful for them.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the latter group (the positive pain people) were able to tolerate the pain stimulus for a significantly longer period of time than the former. The researchers suggest that the reason for this was the activation of opioid and cannabinoid ‘reward’ systems, which are pathways within the brain that respond to pleasure and pain. To further support their explanation, the scientists also used drugs that block and inhibit these pathways and found that the group differences were lost when these pathways were no longer active (i.e. both groups tolerated the pain for the same duration of time). That means the way we mentally perceive pain and discomfort can have important implications for how our body responds to such experiences.

This research was intended for cancer patients undergoing treatment, but it can also be applied to endurance sports.

When applied to running in particular, perceiving painful experiences (such as racing or hard workouts) in a more positive light may increase our ability to tolerate such experiences and perhaps push our bodies (and minds) further than we previously thought possible. So rather than give in to the pain and back off when times get tough, instead try to think about the benefits of the discomfort, which is to push the body to new limits and be better than it was before.