ARE RUNNERS STOICAL - AN EXAMINATION OF PAIN SENSITIVITY IN HABITUAL RUNNERS AND NORMALLY ACTIVE CONTROLS

Anecdotal and clinical reports suggest that athletes are stoical. Howe ver, there are few studies comparing persons who exercise regularly wi th those who do not. This study compared two independent samples of re gular runners and normally active controls, both without recent exerci se, on cold presser, cutaneous heat, and tourniquet ischemic pain test s. Results demonstrated that the runners' threshold for noxious cold w as significantly higher than that of controls. The heart rate and bloo d pressure responses to cold were similar in the 2 groups, suggesting that differences in cold pain report did not result from differences i n autonomic reactivity to cold. Signal detection theory measures demon strated that runners discriminated among noxious thermal stimuli signi ficantly better than controls, but neither noxious nor innocuous therm al report criteria differed between groups. The cohorts also did not d iffer in their report of ischemic pain sensations. Thus, these data do not generally support the hypothesis of pain insensitivity or stoicis m in habitual runners. Rather, insensitivity occurs only in their resp onse to noxious cold, which is suggested to be an adaptation to regula r training.