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Scientific Evidence Suggests Martial Arts Reduce Sensitivity To Pain

Scientific Evidence Suggests Martial Arts Reduce Sensitivity To Pain

Pain is unavoidable aspect of the jiu-jitsu experience. Much like in many other martial arts it plays a significant role in every aspect of training.

How does that alter the life experience? 

There is ample scientific evidence suggesting that there is a reduction in intensity of pain in people who exercise regularly. But it is a double edged sword in some respects because it presents a potential obstacle when dealing with regeneration and rehabilitation.

Systematic exposure to brief periods of intense pain we go through during practice and competition teach us to cope with these experiences and push through them.

Measurements of pain in these researches aren’t perfect. Majority of them relies on the Cold Pressor Test and the Pressure Pain Test.

You can see an example of CPT here:

 

Besides that there’s also a Pressure Pain Test gauged via an algometer which presses on the tissue with weight ranging from 0 to 10kg.

 

A photo posted by Tyler Bishop (@tylerbishopbjj) on

 

But to the point, the recently published research by Leznicka and colleagues of the Department of Human Functional Anatomy and Biometry in Poland established that there’s a much higher pain threshold in martial arts athletes where values above tolerating over 10kg per cm2 were obtained in as much as 17% of participants as opposed to 1% noticed in people who are qualified as non-athletes.

And the subjective assessment of pain seems to conclude that skilful coping with stress increases pain control and experience! Another research, done by Azavedo and colleagues elaborates that athletes who have developed successful strategies for coping with stress can tolerate drastically higher levels of pain compared to others.

In conclusion it’s safe to scientifically claim that martial arts toughen you up – in terms of both the point at which you begin to feel pain as well as the pain threshold – the point at which pain becomes unbearable!

literature:

Azevedo DC, Samulski M. Assessment of
psychological pain management techniques:a comparative study between athletes and nonathletes.
Rev Bras Med Esporte 2003; 9; 214-222