"Work through the pain!" A statement too often made impartially by too many coaches.
Everyone knows that a part of becoming a better athlete requires some measure of pain tolerance but statements such as this must be made with great care, always mindful of the maturity of the audience, otherwise such coaches could find themselves somewhat liable for injuries or exacerbating injuries.
Whether dealing with youths, amateurs and sometimes even elites, the competitive personality which is a key component to creating a top athlete will see pain as a requirement to athletic success.
Regardless of whether the goal is to improve a personal best or to place first, pain is not something that is feared as much as it is expected.
The pain threshold can become quite high, making it difficult sometimes to trust an athlete to differentiate between whether they are bettering their performance or doing themselves more harm than good.
Athletes who are being trained for success have, in essence, placed a certain amount of trust in their coach. Trust that their coach has the knowledge to bring out the best in them. Trust that he knows when it is time to push harder, or time to taper.
Trust that regardless of how badly he/she might want his hard work and effort to end with that gold medal, the only thing that would matter more, is his/her athlete's health and safety.
Dealing with injuries can be a frustrating part of a coach's existence. When the pressure is on to produce results, the last thing coaches ever want to deal with is an injury.
However, regardless of how strong that appetite is for success, the coach is as much obligated to his/her athlete's physical wellbeing as he is to any of the other stakeholders be they the team owners, the fans or themselves.
An athlete consistently complaining of pain must not be ignored and to do so is to abuse one's authority as coach. Athletes who refuse to admit their limitations due to injury, eventually learn to deal with pain after the body has made as many compensations as it is willing or able to.
Such an existence goes from being an inconvenience to a part of life and the spillover effect of it is the inability to distinguish between what is referred to as "good pain" or "bad pain."
"Good pain" is the pain that coaches refer to when the blanket statement "work through the pain" is made. As part of making the body better and/or stronger, the body is subject to a certain amount of trauma.
Chemical changes in the tissue and microtrauma to the muscle leads to a level of inflammation that is very much needed in helping the body become a resilient machine.
The more resilient it becomes the more pressure it can withstand relatively comfortably and this goes for both the physical as well as the mental aspects of fitness and performance.
The "bad pain" however, is a different sensation and it triggers a different response from both the body and the brain. It may or may not be acknowledged right away but at some point it is and the sooner it is addressed/corrected, the more likely the chances of a quicker recovery. Sometimes, the existence or the severity of an injury can be quicker noted by the coach looking on than the athlete himself. The body subconsciously compensates in different ways to avoid pain. These compensations can be detected by changes in performance or output–how quickly he recovers from a tackle, his acceleration pace, facial expressions, consistently reaching for a particular spot (which can be happening subconsciously by the athlete), an unusual movement pattern... and the list goes on. Teams with specialist coaches bring this added advantage. Instead of having one coach to a large number of athletes, the team is grouped according to function making it a smaller coach to player ratio adding the obvious benefits of such a set up.
The environment in Trinidad and Tobago makes it a tremendous challenge to reach most sporting goals, regardless of the role in the industry, from athlete to therapist. As such, the expectations of the technical coach, who has the greatest chances of communication with the athlete, morphs into one of being able to "do it all." The reality of this is, the best coaches in any sport, do not know how to do it all nor do they expect it of themselves. The best coaches build themselves a team that will complement themselves and vice versa in the interest of the athlete and the sport.
Asha De Freitas-Moseley is a certified athletic trainer with the National Athletic Trainers' Association of the USA. She has more than ten years of experience working with athletes and other members of the active population, rehabilitating and returning them from injury to full play. She can be reached at 17 Henry Pierre Street, St James. Tel: 221-2437.
