Pain tolerance scale

Ewoud Dronkert said:

Sonarrat said:

I read it as 10 being the most pain you could possibly have on a bike
while remaining upright, that is.

I once fell over after a race, because of sheer exhaustion/pain, does
that count?

Told ya not to race that guy who looks like Rip Van Winkle on a trike.

Seriously, what kinda race was it? Distance, climbs, what sort of
field, etc.

Sonarrat said:

Truth be told, after a spirited two-hour ride, on a scale of 1-10 my pain
level is usually at zero.. I feel fantastic. Endorphins are a wonderful
thing.

-Sonarrat.

Funny thing today. I was suffering big time while working with 3 other
riders in a paceline, with strong headwinds and crosswinds, though warm
and sunny. (It's been a crappy weekend, I think I inhaled some
antifreeze vapors and they've screwed me up, thankfully fixed the
waterpump on the commute-o-wagon so that shouldn't happen again) On the
final grade I was hanging on for dear life as we ascended at about 20
mph, just then we rode into cold fog blowing in off the bay and I
recovered and took over pace setting, far less painful than it was
slogging up hill in the heat.

Richard Adams said:

Quoted message said:

I once fell over after a race, because of sheer exhaustion/pain, does
that count?

Seriously, what kinda race was it? Distance, climbs, what sort of
field, etc.

Team time trial, 180 km, flat as a Dutch pancake without bacon and
cheese, rowers doing a bike race for fun.

That's a long time trial.

keydates <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Ewoud Dronkert <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Team time trial, 180 km, flat as a Dutch pancake without bacon and
cheese, rowers doing a bike race for fun.

That's a long time trial.

How to go cycling, rower-style:
1. Suggest a group ride to make a change from normal training.
2. Start taking the pace up within 2 miles of starting, at which point
everyone else does the same and it becomes a TTT with stupidly long
turns.
3. Try to blow everyone else up.
4. Extend the ride until it's long enough you either blow up or finish
solo. For bonus points, when you think you're about to drop someone,
try to do it sitting up on the tops chatting, or at least smiling.

if you're going cycling with rowers, find some hills, and assume that
while they may look like monkeys on bikes they will be very fit.

Peter

"Jiyang Chen" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

During your typical race, time trial, or hard training ride, what is
your level of pain, on a scale of 1-10, when you are going the hardest?

0=60 mph tailwind
3=harder, but not painful
5=painful
7=very painful
10=Iraqi prison camp painful... aka acid bath, hand in toaster, etc.

Jiyang Chen

I have a very low pain threshold- yes I've broken a leg and had other
serious injuries including being shot and there you just make it
through since you have no choice. On a bike however I just seem to
"give up" when there's a certain level of burn in my legs or I start
gasping. I figure with some knowledge of what's on the other side or
how the pain progresses I would feel armed to push a little harder or
if I'm just wimping out at a particular stage. I generally start to
feel some tightness in my legs well before I'm breathing hard and
gradually back off. Occasionally I find myself breathing, gasping
actually, without really feeling it in my legs. On intervals I'm not
sure how hard to push, when to stop, etc. It's easy to say 'go as hard
as you can' but I think experience may teach you how to dig out energy
from deep reserves.

To be specific- what are the steps in the progression of discomfort
from exertion for you?

[email hidden] (Peter Allen) wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

keydates <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Ewoud Dronkert <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Team time trial, 180 km, flat as a Dutch pancake without bacon and
cheese, rowers doing a bike race for fun.

That's a long time trial.

How to go cycling, rower-style:
1. Suggest a group ride to make a change from normal training.
2. Start taking the pace up within 2 miles of starting, at which point
everyone else does the same and it becomes a TTT with stupidly long
turns.
3. Try to blow everyone else up.
4. Extend the ride until it's long enough you either blow up or finish
solo. For bonus points, when you think you're about to drop someone,
try to do it sitting up on the tops chatting, or at least smiling.

if you're going cycling with rowers, find some hills, and assume that
while they may look like monkeys on bikes they will be very fit.

Peter

Doesn't sound very much like a TTT, more like the 'social' rides around these parts.

"Sonarrat" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

in article [email hidden], Chris at
[email hidden] wrote on 8/7/04 10:18 AM:

Quoted message said:

That is why I would expect you know know that the pain from a bike ride
can't possibly be more than a 3 or 4 for anyone that is comparing it to

the

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

range of pain the have ever experienced (unless they break something). I
mean come on you guys, an 8 or 9 just from going all out? I guess those

of

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

you that say that have never broken any bones. Maybe the OP should have
explained that a 10 is the most pain imaginable (although I would think

the

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

prison camp descrition would have gotten the idea across).

I read it as 10 being the most pain you could possibly have on a bike -
while remaining upright, that is. And no, I guess I really don't have any
idea what that feels like either...

-Sonarrat.

I kind of thought that was how other interpreted it as well (by the
responses). If I am not mistaken, the OP was inspired by one of the numeric
pain scale that has been in use for years now. Normally "10" is described as
"the most pain you can imagine" (or something like that). There are also
scales with facial expressions. Since everyone feels, experiences and
descibes pain in their own way MDs need to get more information from
patients than a typical conversation can communicate. Most MDs start off
with a dose of pain meds that they have observed as an effective dose in
their past experiences, not the patient's past or current experience. These
pain queries can go a long way towards helping the patient communicate more
clearly with the MD. This is most effective when the patient and MD use the
same chart for initial and follow up visits so that the MD can get the does
optimized for the patient and his or her problem. Most patients will have to
initiate the conversation but it has improved a lot in recent years. Many
states have laws now that intend to guarantee the patients access to
effective pain meds. Under-medicated pain is one of those problems that is
huge and mostly unknown. Only those that suffer (and occasionally the
immediate family, but even they typically don't fully understand) really
know the frustration they have in their lack of ability to get properly
medicated. That would be cool if some who read this thread were inspired to
use it to help someone they know that might be suffering in pain needlessly.

"Raptor" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Chris said:

I guess a 4. I don't think of physical exertion as true "pain" but I

don't

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

think my range of experience is normal. Real pain does not occur from
exertion but it is enough to think at the time that it might be.

Therefore a

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

"4" at just below "painful".

Did you know there are several pain scales used in clinical settings?

One of

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

them uses the numeric (1 - 10) rating similar to what you have proposed

but

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

of course uses other descriptions.

Yep. There's pain and there's misery, or suffering. The only pain I feel
on a bike or other endurance activity is muscle cramps, or a burning of
the throat/lungs. Cramps have gotten as high as an 8 or so, the
respiratory burning is in the 4 range.

I forgot about cramps. That is a good point because I have had hamstring
cramps that had me on the ground for a few minutes. Those hamstrings can
cramp so acutely that you get lower back spasm. That is some very intense
pain (probably 6 or 7).

Quoted message said:

If you want to buy into my distinction between pain and misery, then on
a 1-10 misery scale, trying to stay with an extremely fast paceline in a
race can reach 10 pretty easily just before deciding I cannot push it
any further.

Misery may describe your feeling about the pain. Misery is an emotion and
pain is a physical sensation.

"Jiyang Chen" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

During your typical race, time trial, or hard training ride, what is
your level of pain, on a scale of 1-10, when you are going the hardest?

0=60 mph tailwind
3=harder, but not painful
5=painful
7=very painful
10=Iraqi prison camp painful... aka acid bath, hand in toaster, etc.

You forgot:

15 = reading a posting from Brian Lafferty

18 = reading a posting from Brian Trdina

107 = reading a posting from Rob Palachick

Chris said:

"Raptor" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Chris wrote:

If you want to buy into my distinction between pain and misery, then on
a 1-10 misery scale, trying to stay with an extremely fast paceline in a
race can reach 10 pretty easily just before deciding I cannot push it
any further.

Misery may describe your feeling about the pain. Misery is an emotion and
pain is a physical sensation.

Regardless, I'm trying to say that "pain" and cycling, or the typical
endurance event, don't go together very well. The sensations that I've
come to file under "pain" just aren't all that common on a bike. But I'm
quite acquainted with the long-term misery of a hard ride, or the
short-term misery of too hot a pace.

Other sources of actual pain: saddlesores can push up to 8 if they're
really bad and aggravated by a long, sweaty ride, and I once pushed
myself so hard in an indoor cycling class that I suffered heart attack
like chest pain until I eased up. (I think I just ran out of oxygen to
supply my heart.) The latter was only a 4-5 on the "hurts" scale, but
11+ on the "oh [censored]" scale.

--
--
Lynn Wallace http://www.xmission.com/~lawall
"We should not march into Baghdad. ... Assigning young soldiers to
a fruitless hunt for a securely entrenched dictator and condemning
them to fight in what would be an unwinnable urban guerilla war, it
could only plunge that part of the world into ever greater
instability." George Bush Sr. in his 1998 book "A World Transformed"

In article <[email hidden]>, Raptor

Quoted message said:

Chris said:

"Raptor" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Chris wrote:

If you want to buy into my distinction between pain and misery, then on
a 1-10 misery scale, trying to stay with an extremely fast paceline in a
race can reach 10 pretty easily just before deciding I cannot push it
any further.

Misery may describe your feeling about the pain. Misery is an emotion and
pain is a physical sensation.

Regardless, I'm trying to say that "pain" and cycling, or the typical
endurance event, don't go together very well. The sensations that I've
come to file under "pain" just aren't all that common on a bike. But I'm
quite acquainted with the long-term misery of a hard ride, or the
short-term misery of too hot a pace.

You want pain on a bike? Try racing a kilo, or being the second or
third guy in a team sprint with high stakes.

Or even worse, having to ride two team sprints in less than 10 minutes
after having already done a third one only 20 minutes before that.

-My teammates during our third race in 30 minutes after I dropped them
off...
http://www.hickingbotham.com/gallery/photo.php?photo=10831

-WG

"warren" <[email hidden]> wrote in message

Quoted message said:

You want pain on a bike? Try racing a kilo, or being the second or
third guy in a team sprint with high stakes.

Maximum pain on a bike can be described simply: perpetually coming in second
place in a win and out.

In article <[email hidden]>, Carl Sundquist

Quoted message said:

"warren" <[email hidden]> wrote in message

Quoted message said:

You want pain on a bike? Try racing a kilo, or being the second or
third guy in a team sprint with high stakes.

Maximum pain on a bike can be described simply: perpetually coming in second
place in a win and out.

Accurately described by "The agony of defeat".

-WG

"Carl Sundquist" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Maximum pain on a bike can be described simply:
perpetually coming in second
place in a win and out.

LOL.

For me it's some sick road race with a tail wind where I am not good
enough to do anything but just good enough to not get dropped, and I'm
sort of hoping to pop but I just don't. And it goes on, and on and
on. The same thing can happen on a long, long shallow climb.

JT

John Forrest Tomlinson said:

For me it's some sick road race with a tail wind where I am not good
enough to do anything but just good enough to not get dropped, and I'm
sort of hoping to pop but I just don't. And it goes on, and on and
on. The same thing can happen on a long, long shallow climb.

TTT where you are the 3rd strongest guy. The weakest guy blows and
gets shelled, and it's over. But the 3rd guy has to suck it up all
the way to the finish.

Bob Schwartz
[email hidden]

"Bob Schwartz" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

John Forrest Tomlinson said:

For me it's some sick road race with a tail wind where I am not good
enough to do anything but just good enough to not get dropped, and I'm
sort of hoping to pop but I just don't. And it goes on, and on and
on. The same thing can happen on a long, long shallow climb.

TTT where you are the 3rd strongest guy. The weakest guy blows and
gets shelled, and it's over. But the 3rd guy has to suck it up all
the way to the finish.

I was thinking of the same thing, having been in that position in a 100 km
TTT. Actually I was the fourth strongest, er, weakest guy, but for some
reason I felt an incredible pressure to finish. It was a hilly course and I
got dropped with about 2 km to go on the final climb, and it hurt a lot.

On Wed, 11 Aug 2004 19:23:38 +1000, "Jeff Jones"

jeff@cyclingnews-punt-com said:

"Bob Schwartz" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

John Forrest Tomlinson said:

For me it's some sick road race with a tail wind where I am not good
enough to do anything but just good enough to not get dropped, and I'm
sort of hoping to pop but I just don't. And it goes on, and on and
on. The same thing can happen on a long, long shallow climb.

TTT where you are the 3rd strongest guy. The weakest guy blows and
gets shelled, and it's over. But the 3rd guy has to suck it up all
the way to the finish.

I was thinking of the same thing, having been in that position in a 100 km
TTT. Actually I was the fourth strongest, er, weakest guy, but for some
reason I felt an incredible pressure to finish. It was a hilly course and I
got dropped with about 2 km to go on the final climb, and it hurt a lot.

I did a 100KTTT where I was the weakest guy, but our strongest guy
road like a moron, torturing me early and the popping late, to the
time was on me....

JT