Motor performance during experimental pain: The influence of exposure to contact sports

Abstract

Background Athletes who play contact sports are regularly exposed to pain, yet manage to perform complex tasks without significant decrement. Limited research has suggested that superior pain tolerance in contact athletes may be important in this context and this may be altered via experience of pain. Other psychological variables such as challenge states, pain bothersomeness and coping style may also influence skill execution during pain. Methods Forty experienced contact athletes (>3 years experience), 40 novice contact athletes (<6 months experience) and 40 non‐contact athletes performed a motor task both in pain and without pain. During the pain condition, pressure pain was induced and half of each group were given challenge instructions and the other half threat based instructions. Measures of cognitive appraisal, heart rate variability, pain bothersomeness, tolerance and intensity and coping styles were taken. Results Contact athletes, regardless of experience, performed better during pain compared to the non‐contact athletes, this relationship was mediated by pain tolerance and physical bothersomeness. During the threat condition, experience of contact sports moderated performance. Contact athletes were challenged by the pain, regardless of the instructions given, had higher direct coping and found pain less psychologically bothersome. Experienced contact athletes had higher pain tolerance and reported pain as less intense than the other groups. Conclusions Athletes who play contact sports may have better coping and adjustment to experimental pain, especially during threatening conditions. Performance during experimental pain is mediated by pain tolerance and physical pain bothersomeness. Significance Athletes with even relatively small amounts of contact sport experience perform better during experimental pain than athletes who play non‐contact sports. Experienced contact athletes had higher levels of direct coping and were more challenged and less threatened by pain than non‐contact athletes.

A Theory of Challenge and Threat States in Athletes: A Revised Conceptualization

“…Assessing neuroendocrine markers of challenge and threat states, such as cortisol, and NPY, may support our understanding of psychophysiological mechanisms, as would exploring how parasympathetic nervous system activity can also relate to challenge and threat (Laborde et al, 2015;Uphill et al, 2019). Preliminary evidence suggests that high-frequency heart rate variability can be linked to challenge and threat appraisal; Laborde et al (2015) identified that, compared to baseline, greater threat responses were associated with a decrease in parasympathetic activity and Thornton et al (2019) found increased HRV after challenge instructions compared with threat instructions.…”

Exposure to Contact Sports Results in Maintained Performance During Experimental Pain

“…[29][30][31] These reduced pain responses may result in contact athletes being able to cope better, and therefore perform better in pain than noncontact athletes. 32 Evidence suggests that performance in both complex and simple motor tasks tends to decline during painful stimulation in the general population. 5 It is clear that some athletes are able to maintain performance despite the pain inherent in high contact sports such as rugby, however the mechanisms underpinning this ability are not yet fully understood.…”

“…Experienced contact athletes exhibit higher levels of direct coping and are more challenged by pain compared to noncontact athletes. 32 Catastrophizing, by contrast, is a maladaptive coping style, linked to threat states and poor performance during experimental pain. 19 Noncontact athletes may catastrophize more than contact athletes (cf.…”

Sports injuries and psychological aspects of pain perception of athletes

“…The sporting age of participants could play a role in non-significant differences in these scales (Griffith et al, 2006;Thornton et al, 2017). Also, the lack of significance can be attributed to various types of sports included in the study such as combat sports, and ice hockey, which are highly contact sports, but in our study, they are divided as an individual (combat sports) and team (ice hockey) sports (Raudenbush et al, 2012;Thornton et al, 2019), or the gender of participants (Wahl et al, 2019).…”