Chris Mance II - Mental Skills Coach

Research shows that some athletes naturally tolerate more pain than others. For those who are not naturally gifted at tolerating pain, research also shows that it’s possible to increase pain tolerance. It’s important for parents and coaches of athletes to understand this fact.

Just because one athlete is capable of pushing through pain better than another does not mean their future pain tolerance is a fait accompli. This is why an important part of what I do is help young athletes understand the importance of increasing their pain tolerance using positive training pain. Positive training pain is training to intentionally create non-threatening pain in order to build tolerance. Research shows that elite athletes use positive training pain to enhance their performance.

However, incorporating positive training pain into a training regimen is just one piece to the pain tolerance puzzle. David Linden, Ph.D. a professor of neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine provides research that uncovers another piece. Linden’s research suggest that the emotions in the moment of pain impact the intensity of the pain one feels. Consequently, positive emotions reduce the intensity of the pain and negative emotions increase the intensity of pain.

This doesn’t mean the actual level of pain changes, only how an athlete responds to it. As a result, environments dominated by negativity increase the intensity of how an athlete feels pain and vice versa. With that said, here are two tips parents and coaches of athletes can takeaway:

1. It’s possible to enhance the effects of using positive training pain to build pain tolerance by creating negative and stressful emotions in the athlete. But only if the athlete buys-in and understands in advance how this will help them increase their pain tolerance.
2. During competitions parents, coaches, and athletes must train their minds to suppress negative thoughts and at least remain neutral if not positive.