Janal Malvin N, Glusman Murray, Kuhl John P, Clark Crawford W
Department of Biopsychology New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, NY 10032 USA Department of Behavioral Physiology, New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, NY 10032 USA.
Pain. 1994 Jul;58(1):109-116. doi: 10.1016/0304-3959(94)90190-2.
Anecdotal and clinical reports suggest that athletes are stoical. However, there are few studies comparing persons who exercise regularly with those who do not. This study compared two independent samples of regular runners and normally active controls, both without recent exercise, on cold pressor, cutaneous heat, and tourniquet ischemic pain tests. Results demonstrated that the runners' threshold for noxious cold was significantly higher than that of controls. The heart rate and blood pressure responses to cold were similar in the 2 groups, suggesting that differences in cold pain report did not result from differences in autonomic reactivity to cold. Signal detection theory measures demonstrated that runners discriminated among noxious thermal stimuli significantly better than controls, but neither noxious nor innocuous thermal report criteria differed between groups. The cohorts also did not differ in their report of ischemic pain sensations. Thus, these data do not generally support the hypothesis of pain insensitivity or stoicism in habitual runners. Rather, insensitivity occurs only in their response to noxious cold, which is suggested to be an adaptation to regular training.
