Each week I go to an aerial hoop class. Aerial hoop is a steel ring that hangs from the ceiling that we wrap and drape ourselves around. It hurts. And it hurts more when we first learn a skill. While we yelp and crumple our trainer seems impervious to it all, patiently demonstrating the same thing over and over again. Her body is so used to her equipment that it doesn't really hurt her any more. I like to tell myself that If I stick at this hobby, this will be me one day too. Right?
Maybe. People who are great at their movement modality are wired differently. By regularly engaging in painful exercise, their brains have efficient pain inhibitory systems. They have practiced their skill so often that their brains can predict their body's analgesic needs and meet them immediately. When I first wind myself around a steel bar my body is likely to associate the environment with danger or fear. This requires an up regulation of pain messaging to keep me safe and away from the big round threat. Someone who does this every day has internal models that play their movements through and generate calming chemicals before their body even registers pain.
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If you, like me, aren't at this stage yet, then we'll need to use some cognitive coping strategies instead. Here are some good ones that I have turned into the acronym CAGED BIRDS.
Control. What can we control in the situation? The tightness of a leg; the length of time it takes to do the skill; how we present ourselves to the room. Whatever we can control, we need to focus on that. Choosing how we experience the pain helps to reduce it.
Agency. When we own the pain we take away the power it draws from our fear. This means that we need to expect a base level of pain with our apparatus and become more comfortable with it. Avoiding pain will be detrimental to our progress. Here's an affirmation for this: "I feel pain right now but I won't feel pain in the future."
Goal-setting. Timing the period in which we can hold our painful skill for, and aiming for incremental improvements helps us to see that pain is just a small part of a process that we can work through.
Examine. When we study what the sensation that we are feeling is, we might decide that we are feeling hot, sharp, a vibration, or a pulling, instead of pain. Even if it really is painful we can break the sensation into a multitude of feelings, of which pain is only one element.
Distraction. Focusing on the flow of elements into each other, listening to the music, giving ourselves challenges that take up mental space all help to diminish the discomfort.
Breathe. Very often when we are concentrating we stop breathing. When something is difficult, focussing on where the inhale and exhale are in the movement helps to calm the nervous system.
Instructive. Pain can be a useful guide. What is it telling you? Is it in the right place? Is it stronger than before? How does it compare to the last time you did this skill?
Reframe. When we think of our pain as a positive thing and a step towards achieving a skill, we reduce the fear we have around that skill. Fear drives the nervous system into high alert and is a pain trigger.
Direct. When we speak to ourselves like a coach would: "you're doing great, you can do this, I believe in you" our responding thoughts reassure our nervous system that we are safe which turns our pain dial down.
Safe. Pain is a protective mechanism that keeps us safe. Everything that we can do to make ourselves feel safe will turn our pain dial down. Extra mats, lowering the hoop height, practicing on the floor first, having a trainer close by, using slings, whatever it takes to feel incredibly safe.
Choosing to push my body in a hoop class is a fun way to get strong. It is also an opportunity to practise pain management in a safe way. In time, my practice will become prediction and it will hurt less. Until then, I will be using all of the cognitive coping strategies that I know.
Pieta
Painpro.co.uk
Exercise Therapy, Pain Coaching
