Pain and failure

[Thaibox]

Lord Suston’s thread got me thinking about something that use to bother me a lot, but I wanted to start a new thread to see if I could get some thoughts on this specifically. Lets see if I can articulate this well enough to be understood.

Pain is obviously relative, but how significant of a difference is there between individuals? Its clearly not possible to measure pain qualitatively, so would there be anyway to know how one perceives pain relative to another? One person’s perception of "extreme" pain, may be a simple annoyance to another. The amount of pain that would cause me to whimper, would (hopefully) be exponentially greater than that of a 12 year old girl(or gymtime).
When I say "Holy shit, my legs are through, find a wheelchair." I would like to think that I have nearly maxed out any potential my body has to continue the workload. However, I maybe fooling myself and actually have the potential to continue much further. I have been placed in many situations where I have greatly surpassed what I believed to have been my "pain threshold", or my psychological and physiological limitations(both of which I believe parallel each other). Yet, I still have no idea how this measures up to the person next to me. I may be stronger and appear to push myself harder, but maybe that person is actually far exceeding my effort and experiencing pain that I will not know because they are working at a whole different level than I. This thought has always bothered me. We’ve all seen the triple body weight deadlift, or the fighter that will NOT go down despite his broken ribs and other physical trauma. Is this a level of psychological control that we have yet to achieve? When I black out and tumble to the ground in a whimpering pile, with the taste of blood in my mouth from pushing myself so hard, I’d like to think that I truly reached the absolute potential of my mind body connection and its ability to conquer themselves. But, HOW DO I KNOW??? I know that many people would say, "well, you just have to push yourself and find out." But, then you still wouldn’t know for sure. Maybe I have 30 more pounds, 2 more miles, 15 more minutes, 2 more feet, 1 more round, or 12 more breaths that I can somehow conjure before I collapse to the floor.

Sure there are plenty of genetic, physical, and external(experience, skill) variables that determine the outcome of a competition, but this has to be one of the more dominant influences, if not the most. Am I wrong? Of course, if b-fold and I squared off in a deadlift competition, I would get spanked regardless of the mental level I’m at, but in many other instances this applies.

Would this not be the difference between the also ran", the winner, and the record holder???

Hopefully this made sense because I think that its something important that doesn’t directly get addressed. We think we’re pushing ourselves hard, but wouldn’t it be great to find another level we could possibly operate at? We feel these different levels when we first begin lifting right? "Hey, my body can actually do this, and wow, I can actually tolerate THIS much pain before I fail." Does this intrigue anyone else, or do I just need to get a life and shut up?

 

[spatts]

It makes sense, and is fun to ponder, but I'm not sure you will ever have an answer unless you were somehow to live in someone else's body for a moment. I suppose inflicting the same pain on different people and assessing reactions would be the closest thing. If you think about something like childbirth, every woman has a different experience. I thought it was quick and easy, other women want to kill someone and never have another child as long as they live. There are other factors, like pelvis size, size of baby, etc... In terms of handling pain, I think it also makes a difference if you have time to mentally prepare for the pain, or if it just hits you, how well you are able to isolate, etc... I was able to literally say, okay, that pain is over there, and I'm up here, and would mentally cut myself off from it. I guess I'm easily tricked, LOL. It's a mental game, and some people are better at it than others.

...and some people actually LIKE it.

 

[Thaibox]

...and some people actually LIKE it.

Does that make me a bad person?

 

[spatts]

No.

 

[DrBones]

I took psychology 100 in my first year of college, about 4 years back.. and we did a lot of study on hipnosys(if thats how you spell it).
We had a lot of lectures on how young cancer patients and other young children with painful diseases learn to cope with the EXTREME pain they are in. I mean.. some of these kids are getting spinal taps with minimal fear, no crying, nothing. Not all of these children are this mentally strong, but they have people who teach them techniques... breathing techniques, thinking your somewhere else.. it is amazing the power people have over the influence of pain on their body. These kids are soldiers man.. now if we could all put the same intensity that it takes to overcome that pain into each and every one of our workouts, push through that last rep, I believe there would be some very large people roaming these boards.
I have some serious respect for those sick kids, I could NEVER deal with some of the stuff they have to deal with.. I just don't think I'm strong enough.

Ryan

 

[spatts]

I also think pain is a method of communication, and part of becoming mature in your training is learning what you need to listen to and what you can observe and then set aside.

 

[Thaibox]

That's actually one of the best things I have done over the years for dealing with pain. I have spent a lot of time meditating, and practicing self hypnosis. I've studied intensely the "demon" theory of Taijutsu, which is basically the mental visualization of a creature with all of the ideal characteristrics of the perfect warrior. It felt pain only as an indicative feeling of possible damage, no fear, immense strength, etc. Following the design of this creature, it is practiced to manifest it into your own body upon your will. Sort of like a post hypnotic suggestion, the onset of a fight will trigger its release, or the grasping of the bar, etc.

It probably sounds silly, but to anyone who knows about hypnosis, it is very real and almost frightening when first put into practice. Yet, even though it works well for me, it still doesn't tell me I am above the mental truamatic capacity of my competition.

 

[solidj55]

I would like to study that Thai, where can I read about it?

 

[SteelWeaver]

I think for those for whom pain/maximal effort/pushing the limits is a regular occurrance, the limits keep moving. Each time you reach a new limit, well, that's the level to be surpassed next time. I suppose this doesn't help you with how other people perceive the pain that they are going through, but a maximal effort is a maximal effort, isn't it? I really think mental training/habitualisation to limit-pushing is a huge part of it, though. I guess those who reach a mental level where they're not actually EXPERIENCING the pain as PAIN, like, are able to put it outside of themselves, are the world record holders

All I know is that bodybuilding, particularly competition prep., has helped me to discover that my limits lie FAR beyond what I used to believe they were at. So now I just don't SEE limits - I just see the next step, and work through the action that is needed to get beyond that step.

 

[gymtime]

Does that make me a bad person?

Yes. So stick to the machines and the women's weights area, that's my advice to you.