Do you sometimes wonder if it’s really worth the effort?
Is getting up early to go for a walk, run or cycle going to make that much difference?
Is the discomfort of pushups or weight training actually making my life any different and will it make a difference in years to come?
New research on war veterans has given us yet another reason to ‘tolerate’ the short term discomfort that goes with exercise.
A new study in The Journal of Pain, published by the American Pain Society, shows that acute exercise can exacerbate pain but long-term exercise has the opposite outcome and reduces it.
Researchers from Middleton Memorial Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin and the University of Wisconsin tested levels of experimental pain sensitivity in Gulf War veterans following acute exercise sessions.
They hypothesized that veterans with Chronic Muscular Pain (CMP) would report lower pain thresholds and higher pain intensity from experimental pain stimuli than healthy Gulf War veterans. Vets with CMP also were predicted to rate naturally occurring pain from exercise as more intense.
The researchers reported that, consistent with their hypothesis, vets with CMP claimed that heat induced pain stimuli was more intense and unpleasant than evidenced in healthy subjects. They also had greater leg pain intensity during exercise and were more sensitive to the pain stimuli following acute exercise compared to pre-exercise ratings.
Pain thresholds, however, did not show significant differences between healthy subjects and those with CMP, contrary to what the researchers hypothesized.
The authors noted that exercise research in chronic muscle pain patients shows a paradox in that acute exercise appears to exacerbate pain while chronic exercise can reduce pain.
The researchers concluded that the challenge for health professionals is to encourage regular exercise for CMP patients to avoid disability, even though initial exercise regimens may increase pain in the short run.
This study highlights what you probably already know. That the short term discomfort of exercise makes the rest of your day easier even though some days you just don’t feel like.
I’m guessing that if you get this newsletter you are doing some form of regular exercise (or at least you are thinking about it). But I bet you know someone who struggles to make exercise a part of their routine and they complain that it hurts. If so, why not forward this newsletter to them as and give them extra encouragement to become a regular exerciser.
Let’s face it if they can’t put up with the short term discomfort of exercise now, how are they going to cope with the aches and pains that occur as a result of seventy years of a sedentary lifestyle.
