Pain Thresholds and Tolerances of Competitive Rowers and Their Use of Spontaneous Self-Generated Pain-Coping Strategies

Experimental ischaemic pain was induced in 20 male competitive rowers in training and a control group of 20 males not in training. Pain tolerances, but not thresholds, were higher for competitive rowers. The rowers also reported using a range of self-generated pain-coping strategies during testing which, they claimed, they also used during training. Pain tolerances were correlated with the number and quality of coping strategies used during testing.