Pain has an immediacy to it. It demands our attention and can totally dominate what we think and do. A painful injury during a fight or a match can often spell defeat. So it’s critical we learn to set our pain threshold as high as possible.
As I mentioned in my last post, pain serves a very important and useful function. It notifies us when something is wrong somewhere within our bodies and insists we drop everything we’re doing and take care of it. That, of course, is not always possible. Plus, some injuries require immediate treatment. But most do not. Once pain has warned us, its purpose has been served and it must be shut off so as not to distract us.
Pain is what is known as a relative sensation. What to one man is severe may be barely noticeable to another. Also, what may seem excruciating under certain circumstances may be tolerable under a different set. Some of this is due to genetics and some to psychological or sociological factors.
On the genetics level, we’ve all likely seen those people who are what they call “non-responders” in jujitsu and pressure point systems. You crank on a wrist lock and the recipient just looks at you, feeling no pain whatsoever. Others howl and dance around. Some of this could be due to an improperly applied lock or attack. But there are a significant number of people who are just wired differently than the rest of us.
You also have people who are tougher mentally than others, for whatever reason. They may have endured a lot of pain growing up or while in the military or on the street and so on. You see similar reactions in top athletes in a variety of sports and activities. Pain is often the fork in the road that separate champions from the also-rans. Most will “hit the wall” and the pain will cause them to back off. The top performers will keep on going or perhaps go even harder.
I’ve worked with a variety of Olympic, professional, and national and world caliber champions over the years. They all have this ability in common. They know that if they can’t work within the pain zone, they will never achieve their goals for a high finish. They know all of their major competitors work regularly within the pain zone. In fact, they see pain as a positive sign. It tells them that they are working within the champion’s zone, the zone where only the very best train or perform.
I’ll discuss this important subject further in my next post. Thanks again for reading my humble ramblings.
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