No Pain. No Gain.
The Tour de France.
Pain.
They seem synonymous, don't they?
So how do cyclists do it? That’s the question a colleague of mine in the Kinesiology department at California State University Long Beach wanted to know. As a competitive cyclist for 18 years and a member of the US National Team, he was well acquainted with pain. So he set out to investigate the strategies for coping with exertion pain that former Olympic cyclists used while competing.
Before I get to the results, here’s a little background on pain (though I’m sure if you’re an endurance athlete reading this you are already familiar with it). First, let’s make a distinction between the pain you feel when you injure yourself and injury-free pain. The later can be caused by a number of factors:
-Your heart rate goes up to a level you feel uncomfortable with.
-You’ve got a buildup of lactic acid (a result of anaerobic exertion).
-You’ve depleted your body’s storage of muscle glycogen (you’ve run out of fuel).
-Your respiratory muscles are fatigued.
-You’re dehydrated.
If you’re a competitive athlete, competing giving at your max, there is no way to avoid these things – postpone them, perhaps. Avoid them, no. As 3-time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond said, “… in pro cycling everything hurts, but you just ride through it….”
Here’s the first 5 of a list of 12 ways professional cyclists do it:
(1) They recognize that pain is a perception. This should come as no surprise. The researchers found that “the amount of pain encountered was inversely proportional to the enjoyment of the experience.” As one of the cyclists in the study said, “The pain thing I think is really interesting, because when things are not going great it sure hurts a lot more. When things are really clicking, it hurts a lot less.”
(2) They know that pain is only temporary. One strategy the cyclists used was to remind themselves that their competitors could only maintain an excruciating pace for a limited amount of time after which there would be a break from the pain.
(3) They go into races well prepared. This is best described by a cyclist in the study who stated, “If I have put my time into training and given a good effort, I know in my mind that I am ready physically for this event and then I have no excuses. I just do it. As a result, when I get out there and I am on, I just don’t feel the pain.
(4) They focus on the mechanics of riding. Riders found that as pain built focusing on those aspects of performance that got them to the finish line in the most efficient way possible was the best way to manage it. This is the complete opposite of what amateur athletes are tempted to do which is disassociate – to think of something other than the race (their boyfriend, girlfriend, Hawaii, etc.) One cyclist explained it this way: “You have to concentrate on what you are doing, but at the same time you don’t want to concentrate of the pain either because that will back you off too. You have to be very aware of what you are doing.”
(5) They have a race plan and adhere to it. Having specific goals was critical to the management of pain. The researchers found that, “Armed with the knowledge of a desired product [goals], they were at times able to push themselves a little bit more.”
That's the first part of the list. So this post doesn't get unbearably long, the last part will be posted in a few days.
From the list it should be clear that professional cyclists not only prepare themselves physically for a competition but also mentally.
How about you?
How have you handled the pain of competition?
What worked and what didn’t?
The interesting thing about writing a blog is that over time a community of readers develops. The Sportsminded community now has members from all around the globe (if you haven’t checked out the map at the bottom-right of this page take a look and see where they’re coming from). How amazing it could be if even a small fraction of this blog’s readers posted a comment sharing their experience. Think of how much could be learned.
So don’t just be passive readers of this blog. Jump in.
I promise you, posting a comment won’t be painful.