Triathletes Lose Their Advantageous Pain Modulation under Acute Psychosocial Stress

Abstract

The results suggest that under acute psychological stress, triathletes not only react with SIH and a reduction in pain modulation but also lose their advantageous pain modulation over nonathletes. The stronger the stress response recorded, the weaker the SIH. It appears that triathletes are not resilient to stress, responding with an increase in the sensitivity to pain as well as a decrease in pain inhibition. The possible effects of athletes' baseline pain profile and stress reactivity on SIH are discussed.

Dissociation of Endogenous Pain Inhibition Due to Conditioned Pain Modulation and Placebo in Male Athletes Versus Nonathletes

“…Thus, their appraisal of pain might change over the years of intense training, or alternatively, only persons with an already changed appraisal of pain become endurance athletes. Furthermore, athletes have a higher CPM effect than nonathletes, confirming H2 and in accordance with recent studies on triathletes (Geva and Defrin, 2013;Geva et al, 2017) and athletes of different kinds of sports, including cycling, swimming, football, weightlifting, and martial arts (Flood et al, 2016). Only one study reports a reduced CPM effect in endurance athletes compared to nonathletes (Tesarz et al, 2013).…”

“…When the H1 can be accepted, we can assume the success of our study manipulation and continue with testing (H2) that a greater CPM effect occurs in athletes compared to nonathletes. The main purpose of our H2 is to replicate a handful of recent studies that demonstrate endurance athletes have an enhanced CPM effect compared to healthy nonathletes (Geva and Defrin, 2013;Flood et al, 2016;Geva et al, 2017). Only when this hypothesis is accepted (by rejecting the H0 that there are no differences between groups), can we assume that endurance athletes have a better endogenous pain-inhibition system and continue with testing (H3) that there is a greater placebo effect in athletes compared to nonathletes.…”

“…Indeed, in a meta-analysis, Tesarz et al (2012) found that endurance athletes have higher pain-tolerance thresholds than nonathletes. Furthermore, recent studies show that endurance athletes have an enhanced CPM effect compared to healthy nonathletes (Geva and Defrin, 2013;Flood et al, 2016;Geva et al, 2017). Together, a higher pain-tolerance threshold and a greater CPM effect in endurance athletes suggest stronger endogenous pain-inhibition ability compared to healthy nonathletes.…”

Endurance Performance is Influenced by Perceptions of Pain and Temperature: Theory, Applications and Safety Considerations

“…Practitioners should also be aware that acute psychological stress might remove such advantages in pain modulation [52]. Indeed, a dose response was seen between athlete susceptibility to psychological stress, magnitude of perceived stress and any reduction in their advantageous pain modulation capacity [52].…”

“…Practitioners should also be aware that acute psychological stress might remove such advantages in pain modulation [52]. Indeed, a dose response was seen between athlete susceptibility to psychological stress, magnitude of perceived stress and any reduction in their advantageous pain modulation capacity [52]. Practitioners may therefore wish to deploy psychological skills training to develop robust stress resilience and coping strategies in their athletes; this will in turn help them retain optimal pain modulation/resilience capacity [29], which has been shown to be conducive to optimal exercise performance [22,31].…”