Impact of Training Through Pain
Suboptimal performance may persist after pain is gone.
If you need more evidence that training while injured can be detrimental, new research suggests that the adverse effects on movement quality can linger even after an injury has fully healed.
Learning motor skills when pain is present can lead to less-efficient adaptations in muscle activation and movement accuracy. University of Queensland researchers in Australia found that these modifications to motor skill patterns may continue after pain is no longer there. In other words, people continue to use inefficient movement patterns and do not fully recruit targeted muscles, even though movement compensations are no longer necessary.
The investigators concluded that “learning [motor skills] in the presence of pain may underpin the development of suboptimal motor strategies,” and that these may persist beyond the pain—a finding that could have “critical implications for the design of sports training programs and chronic pain rehabilitation.”
The study was reported in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise (2019; 51 [11], 2334–43).
Shirley Eichenberger-Archer, JD, MA
Shirley Eichenberger-Archer, JD, MA, is an internationally acknowledged integrative health and mindfulness specialist, best-selling author of 16 fitness and wellness books translated into multiple languages and sold worldwide, award-winning health journalist, contributing editor to Fitness Journal, media spokesperson, and IDEA's 2008 Fitness Instructor of the Year. She's a 25-year industry veteran and former health and fitness educator at the Stanford Prevention Research Center, who has served on multiple industry committees and co-authored trade books and manuals for ACE, ACSM and YMCA of the USA. She has appeared on TV worldwide and was a featured trainer on America's Next Top Model.
