You Are Not Tough: An Observation or Two About Pain

..good luck on qualifying for the Boston Marathon,

Last night I watched a documentary on the History Channel about the plane that went down in the Andes in 1972 (I actually remembered the story well.) The plane contained a Rugby Team from Uragway. Although most of the guys did die, around 16 of them lived over 70 days with nothing to eat except the dead humans. They were also had no real shelter, just the plane and it was 30 below at night. And they had no winter clothing either. Finally 2 of the guys hiked and climbed there way out of the mountains an almost unthinkably hard task and found help and saved their friends. In the end 14 or 16 men (can’t remember the exact number) out of about 44 did survive. I could not help but think that if that had been a plane of regular citizens they would have lasted probably a week. But Rugby athletes…well those are pretty tough guys…and because of that they survived.

Nope, I’m not tough, although I am a distance runner and a former college athlete. I’m afraid if I had hand surgery, or was trapped on a mountain in sub freezing temps, or had broken ribs I’d not fair very well. However, I did once tough out a kidney stone for a week before it passed and I just went to work just like always etc. I was able to endure the pain by focusing my mind on something else which actually fascinated me that I could do that, not that I want to try it again.

When I read “the Blind Side,” it became apparent to me for the first time that football players spend a part of their pre-game mental preparation banishing fear of serious injury and the accompanying pain. Read this book. The movie was a chick flick. The book dealt extensively with the two major competing philosophies of football, where they began and how they have developed over the years.

I take pain as Good Pain and Bad pain. I know both. Back when I was 18, I was trying to be an amature weight lifter. Sometimes I was so sore I couldn’t move my arms. However, that is a good pain, your body healing but you are right about the fine line between good pain and (injury pain). One day I was doing a T-bar row, and my arm was really sore and a touch numb. I went to do body crosses and I screamed a scream that goes down as a legend at the gym. I was only doing 30lbs and I felt a pain that I never could imagine. I went to the hospital and I had ripped my bicep tendon.

I got to learn a higher level of pain when I smashed my car into a wall doing 112mph in a drag race (not really a true sport) but I shattered three discs in my back. You know when they ask you how bad the pain is on a scale 1-10. I told the doc I was at 9 and I added if I reached ten for him to kill me. Trust me, I meant it.

The greatest pain I ever felt was when I passed a kidney stone. I laid on the floor writheing in pain for 6 hours because no one was at home and I couldn’t get up to call 911.

I have broken bones and even been shot. That’s a long story but a client’s husband shot me. Yea, doing divorces. I was luckly shot in the leg and the bullet went clean through.

Scale of pain:

Broken bones = 5
Shot = 6
Torn ligament = 7
Shattered discs = 9
Kidney stone = 10+

I also plaid football (I sucked) as a MLB and I know what it feels like to hit and be hit. Even if you’re not injured the bruises and repetative hits take their toll and I only plaid at the high school level with a bad team. I plaid 3 years and we only won 5 games so they were desprate for players.

So I totally agree, those boys wearing Crimson are tough SOBs. Also the people on Gmac’s case, until they have been plowed into the ground by a 220+lb and you only have 4 seconds to make a desicion within that time or you know you’re going to be laid on the ground. I don’t think they can really talk or understand how tough it is. Yes, I get pissed at Gmac sometimes but I just think what he’s going through and I can understand sometimes why he dips and dunks. So to the fans on Gmac, remember he is a 20 something year old with the weight of the team, the fans, and the hopes and dreams of not only himself but the state of Alabama on his shoulders. He did a hell of a lot to get that NC for the university and us. Yes, he plays for the elite SEC school and the fans expect him to work miracles. However, remember he wants to do better than even we want and he has to deal with pain and pressure. So cut Gmac some slack. He’s tougher than 99.9% of us Alabama fans. Sorry I ranted but I felt it was needed

This stuff really gets my attention. Over the past 4-5 years I’ve gotten really into lifting and have managed to reach a few of my goals as far as strength and definition, but it comes with a price. I’m constantly in some sort of pain and have pulled tons of muscles (mostly my right bicep, but still not trying to compete with GTO in the pain game – you win, homie). My worst pain is in my legs. I constantly get shin splints and still have bad knees from jumping out of airplanes. For me, the problem is the old-school Army policy of long runs = more fit soldiers. I am NOT a distance runner. 3-4 miles is my limit and after that I either can’t stand the pain in my legs and/or my mind has already dropped too many “WTF is the point?”s for me to continue. Luckily, there’s been some switching from the classic Push-Ups, Sit-Ups, Long runs to a new crossfit/P90X type PT sessions. They’re being implemented at the Basic Training level for new recruits with hopes of commanders adapting them to company level training in the future. I don’t think that has to do with pain but more with the obesity problem in America and its obvious affect on our military (Trust me, the Army alone has WAY too many overweight soldiers and it’s very embarrassing and unsafe). Anywho, that’s a different story.
My point (kinda) is that anyone who says these kids are pussies or are faking or aren’t playing tough need to get off their ass and jump in front of a bus. That’d be about half the pain these guys experience game in and game out throughout the season. Football is a tough sport…just ask all the players in the NFL who have left on stretchers this season. Or that Rutgers player. GTFOH with that bullshit…YOU. ARE. NOT. TOUGH.

Through years of boxing, I had developed arthritis in my hands by my mid-twenties. Pounding and getting pounded on with nagging pain, the little injuries to your body during a fights, and the obvious acute punishment (giving and recieving) in which you have to pretend not to be hurt basically makes you turn on a berserker state of mind that gets you through it— I had a hard time rising to this on a few occasions but overall I would like to think myself tougher than the average person. However, the thought of passing a kidney stone or having a baby makes me cringe like a sissy. I liked GTO’s comparison list. Would a woman here do somethings similar? I’d like to see if anyone here has given natural childbirth and how it compares to other forms of pain they might have had.

i think the first thing i would point out is that a lot of these examples of extreme pain — injuries, kidney stones, etc — are not exactly what i am addressing here. and the fact that most folks don’t make a distinction between the two is a reason for a lot of misconceptions about what elite athletes endure.

to take up regular exercise means putting up with what most athletes consider “discomfort.” that’s not a pejorative designation since most people shouldn’t be doing anything that goes beyond that. people as me if they can run such and such a race and i tell them unless they have a very specific physical condition, they can. with one important caveat — they don’t consider the final time at all.

because its when you start maximizing your performance that you start having issues. thats when you move out of the realm of “discomfort” due to exercise and enter the world of “pain” in terms of asking more of your body than it might be capable of doing on a regular basis.

at the other end of the spectrum, there is a real difference between the pain you have to push through in order to obtain the maximum performance possible from your body and outright injury. but when you get to the upper thresholds, that can be a subtle distinction. but knowing that difference is a key part of being an elite athlete.

i’ll give my own example. two years ago, when training for my last BQ effort i developed patellar tendonitis. basically, every time i ran it felt like someone was stabbing me in the knee with an ice pick. this was most definitely injury pain. it’s not necessarily crippling if treated but the treatment is, essentially, don’t run.

but it developed right at the end of my training and after consulting my coach and a doctor we decided to try and train through it. and every run i did was an experience in agony. i was making my times and hitting my goals but it was brutal. i basically lived with an ice bag on my knee propped up in bed when i wasn’t running.

instead of a regular taper, we just ceased workouts the eight days prior to the race in order to get the tendonitis taken care of in anticipation of the race and, sure enough, it went completely away (so anyone who says bye weeks don’t matter can kiss my skinny ass).

this experience was my visit to the nearest province in this vast territory of pain every athlete dwells in as a native. i was just a tourist, this is where they live their lives. and i cannot even imagine the horrors endured by those who push the boundaries of the farthest borders of the domain.

1 – Pain from an event that I can stop or quit and the pain will then stop or diminish greatly. Running is one of these. I don’t run, don’t like it. I’ve trained for 5k’s and a half and just don’t find it fun.

2 – Pain from an event that I must push through. Childbirth was one of these. My son was about 4 weeks early and labor was extremely fast up to the point of an emergency c-sec. I did not get an epidural so until the time when I was unconscience, I was in extreme pain. But, there was no option of quitting, so I cussed my way through it. After the surgery, I did not take pain meds. The whole have to have a clean system for nursing thing. So again, I pushed through it.

I’m thinking that elite athletes have the attitude of #2. No option of quitting. Kleph’s R&R Marathon experience supports that. When he could have quit, that wasn’t an option. I know that if I’m hiking and I’m 5 miles from the end, it doesn’t matter if I’m hurting, or tired or whatever. The hike has to be finished and I’m the only one that can get me back to the car. So, attitude #2 persists.

None of this, of course, even remotely compares to the Rugby team or even our Tide. Week after week I see these guys get hammered, knowing that I would not get back up after most of those hits. So the mental conditioning must play a huge factor in the game.

as Kleph says, you do become a connoiseur of it (fuck you, French words!). There are the acute pains, which are terrible and terrifying, e.g., shattered bones, cracked discs, organ failure, migraines.

Then, for those of us with serious pain disorders and pain from serious illnesses, such as fibro or als or cancer, there is a whole ’nother world of pain: One that is so difficult to describe. It is a pain that is a vast black ocean enveloping you; a constant pain that spikes so heavily at times that you are left tiny, in significant in the face of it…as though your own body has swallowed you, and left behind a grain of suffering on an endless beach.

The body is amazing, and these athletes abilities to banish their fear and deal with the actue pain of injuries is truly a sign of mental and physical toughness. But those living with agonizing demylenating illnesses live with pain that can destroy you mentally: There is no hope for abatement. Every day is a struggle. There is no healing. There is only surviving and getting through the day. Tomorrow can/will bring more of the same.

The hardest shot I ever took in Bryant Denny Stadium knocked me out and broke the snaps of my helmet. I hit the ground so hard I literally bounced. I got decleated and all the air was knocked out my body (I let loose a monstrous fart even though I didn’t feel like I had to fart at all prior to the hit).

On impact with the turf, the first thing that went through my head was “Get up, don’t let him know he hurt you” and I started running after him because I wanted to kill him. The play ended after this. But I was out of it and my vision was blurry and my ears were ringing. One thing that motivated me, in that second, was some redneck motherF’er in the stands shouted, ‘BOOOOOOMMMM!’ in a nasally twang and I wanted to kill him and the receiver who’d blindsided me. I wanted to kill everyone on the other side.

I stayed in and played the rest of the series with a broken helmet and a loss of coordination. I didn’t want the guy to know that he’d hurt me and I didn’t want to come out of the scrimmage because you only get so many looks. The only thing that sucked is I was slow off the ball and caught out of position about two plays later and that was my only negative play in the game. It was the only play in the game that I didn’t beat the offense off the snap and they gained like 20 yards to my side because I didn’t hold the edge. Still pisses me off today.

But it also sucked major ass because I never got a chance to drill the guy who’d blindsided me (he took off running when he saw me get up and chase after him) and later in the day when I left the football complex I drove way the hell out of the way for no reason. I was practically to Dreamland—by myself—when I realized my apartment was by campus and I didn’t know where in hell I was. It was the most disoriented I’ve ever been after playing football.

Surprisingly, the most painful injury I ever suffered occurred my frosh year of high school. During camp, I got to be on scout team for varsity. Our fullback ran a sweep and I came flying up from the corner and hit him helmet to helmet. He outweighed me by 110 pounds (I was less than 100 at the time) and I damaged the cartilege in my neck. They took me to the hospital and all that jazz and I was lucky I wasn’t paralyzed. That one sucked, but I won over our varsity coaches as a freshman.

redneck motherF’er in the stands shouted, ‘BOOOOOOMMMM!’

By the way…I still want to kill this man so let me know if any of you see him.

but one of the reasons Julio will play with so much pain—other than the fact that he’s an F’ing warrior—is that he feels loved. It shows what players will do when they don’t want to let their teammates and fans down.

I will use these instances only as examples, not as a yardstick. We all know better and, as BR07 pointed out, it’s different for everyone.

1. At 16, playing FS in high school, I weighed 188 and had 4% body fat. Was fairly strong for my thinness. At Walter
Wellborn High School one night, I hit a 255 lb. TE with a good jump and he essentially carried me out of bounds with him. At said school, their fence was about 4 yds off the sideline. As we slammed into the fence, my knee got smashed between his headgear and the fencepost, snapping my kneecap perfectly in half. I did not feel it at the moment, and attempted to hop right up. As my knee gave, still no pain. I looked down to see my left foot pointing in, but my knee (rapidly swelling) was pointing skyward. No pain until they slipped an air-cast on my leg and inflated it, at which point I pissed myself and passed out. My brother said he heard me yelp from the concession stand.

2. At a secluded spot in Calhoun County, some friends and I were bonfire/beer/reefer partying in the woods. This spot was a turnaround on a Forestry Service road. As we sat there, two cars pull up with a total of 12-14 Latino guys in them. After about 15 minutes, an argument and gunfire ensues. We duck behind the car, which was struck 6 times. As we haul ass out of there, I feel wetness in my shoe. We turn on the interior light to see my entire left leg soaked in blood. A .22 cal. bullet had passed within 1 inch of the largest artery in my thigh, grazed the bone, and exited very close to my sphincter. Only after about 10 min. did the adrenalin wear off, leaving me with this burning sensation I can only describe as all-encompassing. If we had been any farther out, I would have bled out before we made it to RMC.

3. Near Panama City, Panama in ‘89. I’m in the hot seat of a Blackhawk picking up whats left of a MAC/SOG squad from a downtown hotel rooftop. As the squad medic and I are pulling 2 wounded guys in the helo, a burst from what I estimated to be an FN/FAL, rips into the side of the aircraft. I instantly knew, unlike the earlier instance, that I’d been hit with something. In this case, fragments of a steel jacket and the aluminum skin of the helo. It felt like the earlier experience instantly, even though I was already jacked-up on adrenalin and “go-pills”.

I can’t imagine how tough our football players are, due to the factors mentioned earlier. (an unbelievable training staff, diet, etc.) But, you gotta be on another level mentally to function under duress. I know I’ve dogged Julio about his play, but, as you guys pointed out earlier, there is no doubting his toughness. The same can be said for Ingram,Dareus, and many others. These guys are in peak condition and tend to heal a bit quicker than the average person (again, kudos to our staff). It does take an intangible that can’t be quantified to play with pain like that. For that reason, I think twice about players who play hurt. The desire to contribute can outweigh the pain, if it’s in you.

and were a dex derivative. Nasty little fookers, too. I only took ’em when sorties got outta hand.