The Nervous System

Triggered.

No, only kidding. But I did see an Instagram post this week that talked about how sometimes we need to push through pain. Depending on what side of the pain science spectrum you’re on, you either see this as a “No Duh” statement or a “Never” statement.

I see both sides. Let’s explore.

The No Duh Argument

This stems from the fact that most of our sports involvement, weightlifting, games, etc, we have been told to push through the pain. While pushing through effort is a great thing and completely necessary for growth, pushing through pain was always the term that was thrown around.

The Never Argument

Pain science now rules that “The nervous system is Queen”. Just because you CAN push through pain, doesn’t mean you should. Pain is not always a physical thing. It’s mental, emotional, the psychology, the sociology. As a general rule, neurons that fire together, wire together. A positive feedback loop then factors in to how often we feel pain, the more pain we feel.

This post was triggering because my initial reaction was “BUT WHAT ABOUT THE SCIENCE!”... until I read the caption. 

The nervous system likes to be comfortable. When it is uncomfortable and needs change, it’s going to ring its alarm and guess what… now you have pain. While I tend to air on the side of caution and typically avoid the painful movements so that I don’t wire the movement and pain neurons together… if taken literally, this could also cause issues.

Forever avoiding such motion is not going to teach your brain to disassociate that pain from that motion. Rather, I will make the individual perform the motion in a new way, make the brain THINK it’s something different, or dress it up in a funny top hat (a cup perhaps) and the brain won’t recognize the motion. All of a sudden...no more pain. Do that for 3 million reps until the brain no longer associates that motion with pain. Now, obviously it is more complex than this, but this was a thought process I learned through Todd Hargrove and all of my instructors from RockTape courses.

So, yes avoiding a movement because it hurts may promote more fear, and more pain, etc. One way to combat this is to teach the brain that the movement will not in fact kill you. Dress it up. Change the way it walks, put a funny top hat on it, squeeze him, and trick the brain into thinking otherwise. THEN work on that physical stuff. The mobility, the strength, the length, the coordination.

Always remember, the nervous system is QUEEN and you need to speak her language.