Pain 101: Basic Education

As we explained earlier, pain is simply a sensation that occurs inside the brain due to unusual excitatory stimuli. When pain occurs how we handle it largely depends on the cognitive label that we attach to it. Some athletes have learned to reduce their level of intensity when fatigue or muscle burning begins to set in. Others recognize these sensations as real opportunities to achieve physical and mental changes that will lead to better performance.

When you think about pain you need to understand a two principles.

1. Pain exists only in your mind. It is simply a sensation that you can consider negative or positive.
2. Anyone can learn to recognize painful sensations as positive sensations and even come to crave them as proof of their continued athletic growth and achievement.