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The sadomasochism of sports
22 Nov 2008 6:20PM
I can’t remember anytime in the recent past when I haven’t had some sort of injury. Now I’m not tying to give you the impression that I’ve spent ten years limping around in various bandages and casts, but frankly the whole situation is beginning to get to me. I have a far from unique ability to carry injuries for months at a time, which get progressively worse till I start hurting somewhere else. Then my body seems to say ‘oh I can forget about the shoulder ‘cos now my foot is really, really sore’. I don’t think I’m a pussy, but in the last 3 years I’ve doubted myself. I have not had anything worse than minor cuts, bruises, tears, strains, sprains and a weak hip adductor (which Nasty Pete, my physio, has tried to convince me is the source of all my problems), which leads me to consider the point that I’m actually incredibly fortunate. I have been involved in contact sports for as long as I can remember and never had what I would class as a ‘serious’ injury. By that I mean one of those snapped bone, torn skin, screaming in absolute agony type injuries.
I had this thought as I hobbled (on both feet) back to the car… in the gym car park. Despite an on-going back/hip aggravation, sore rotator cuff and a strange piercing pain in the top of my right foot I went to the gym earlier and put myself through the wringer. This is not uncommon for any sportsmen or women; in fact it is their nature. My concern though is my (and other sports enthusiasts) predilection for pain. I actually think it’s addictive. MMA by consequence is painful. The end result of any type of training or sparring is pain, either received or given.
I enjoy punching people in the face and trying to pull their arms off. Fact.
I enjoy being punched in the face and having my limbs contorted by a sadist. Possibly.
Other MMA enthusiasts think and feel the same way. Certainly.
I enjoy the sensation of pain. NO.
There have been countless articles written about this subject and I don’t intend to add to the whole ‘warrior spirit’ genre. What I am going to do though is question the sanity of people (including me) who blindly train on through injuries which they really should spend time treating and setting right.
I did wonder if the constant impending possibility of ligament tearing pain and the dull ache of an accurately placed right hook numb the body to an extent that one’s pain threshold can become too high. To the point where it clouds one’s judgement over how severe an injury is. An extreme example of this can be found in Paula Radcliffe’s autobiography. The anecdote is about how her physio used to use a scale of 1 to 5 for the pain he was inflicting. As in “on a scale of 1 to 5 Paula, how much does this hurt?” The physio would then manipulate some muscle painfully and Paula would chirpily reply “oh about a 2?” Sometime into her treatment the physio realised that he had been working the injury far too hard and that Paula’s ability to soak up pain like a sponge meant what would’ve had other people passing out and/or vomiting was like an inconvenient paper cut to Paula. (Yeah! but put her in the cage mate, I’d hammer her! J). This tendency to get used to pain is problematic, because in my best attempts to not be a ‘pussy’ I try to just get on with it. Many times I have trained and spent a good 50% of the evening wincing and sucking my teeth. Frequently though I think I may well have trained with an injury I really should have had treated properly, ignoring it as best I can in the hope it’ll go away over night. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t… and the injury just stays like an unwelcome guest. You resent it, it annoys you, you want it to go, but you don’t actually do anything to get rid of it. If only you could pull your ‘injury’ off the sofa and kick it out of the door shouting “I’ve got things to do mate!”
Every session of every week someone, usually me, moans about an ache, pain or problem they have (Pep, your secret rash is safe with me). I find this reassuring as it makes me realise I’m not alone in being stupid enough to train through an injury. Ironically it allows me to validate it as well!
But not this time, I’m fed up and am sick and tired of being in pain. I shouldn’t have trained and I know it. It won’t happen again… I’m resting up and getting physio. I’m definitely not training till its right…I’ll make it worse I know… I’m going to pop some pain killers and go to bed now and I’m going to lie in and do nothing tomorrow.
Truth is I know at about 11.30am tomorrow I’m going to convince myself that a light run won’t do me any harm…
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