Pain tolerance scale

Jiyang Chen 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.

I've been in horrendous pain in tailwinds -- this year at the Jiminy
Peak RR in Massachusetts the backstretch had a brutal tailwind and it
was so hard. Guys were flying out the back and the legs were burning.

JT

"John Forrest Tomlinson" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Jiyang Chen 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.

I've been in horrendous pain in tailwinds -- this year at the Jiminy
Peak RR in Massachusetts the backstretch had a brutal tailwind and it
was so hard. Guys were flying out the back and the legs were burning.

JT

Ditto, I have been in pain and at the limit going downhill sometimes since I
suck at climbing, I chase like a madman

Dave

Jiyang Chen 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

8=lunch threatens to repeat
9=lunch repeats

Quoted message said:

10=Iraqi prison camp painful... aka acid bath, hand in toaster, etc.

Jiyang Chen

in article [email hidden], Jiyang Chen at [email hidden] wrote
on 8/6/04 4:17 PM:

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.

If I'm out riding by myself, I usually can't muster more than a 3. I put in
a lot of effort, to be sure, but at my own comfort and convenience and never
at the risk of spending my reserves. But if I'm riding with someone else or
in a large group, or if I'm being paced, I'll follow all of the
accelerations and before I know it, I reach a 10 and blow myself to pieces.

-Sonarrat.

Jiyang Chen 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

60 mph tailwind?

Hard to say what pain is, since I had a kidney stone once and count that
as the upper limit. Worst is usually like a continuous electric shock,
though sometimes I seem to come out the other side (endorphins?) and
feel no pain when going extremely hard up a grade.

Jiyang Chen 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

road race = 8-9 in spots but mostly 4-5
XC race= 9 just at the start, 5 in the middle growing to 9 at the end
TT= 8-9, 10 in the last 500m
hard training ride= 9 somewhere in there.
any nationals, states or worlds= 9-10

Occasionally, when I have great form, I never feel much past 8, yet I'm flying.

Jiyang Chen 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

Don't know if you meant this question fancifully or not. Actually,
from what I've seen, pain researchers actually do use a 1-10 scale for
the magnitude of pain.
However, I remember once returning from a century ride and a psych grad
student asking us to make out questionnaires about our experience of
pain. Besides magnitude (1-10), we were asked to characterize and
describe pain--dull, sharp, slashing, pounding, etc, etc.
There's no uniform way to objectify what is for all of us a subjective
experience.
Obviously, as a dentist I know a little bit about pain, and asking
these kinds of questions is actually done as an aid in diagnosis and
treatment.

Steve

--
Mark & Steven Bornfeld DDS
http://www.dentaltwins.com
Brooklyn, NY
718-258-5001

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

Quoted message said:

Ditto, I have been in pain and at the limit going downhill sometimes since

I

Quoted message said:

suck at climbing, I chase like a madman

I hate being on the limit on a downhill. It just feels wrong. Particularly
when there's a big uphill to follow.

Jeff

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

Did you know there are several pain scales used in clinical settings? One of
them uses the numeric (1 - 10) rating similar to what you have proposed but
of course uses other descriptions.

"Mark & Steven Bornfeld DDS" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Jiyang Chen 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

Don't know if you meant this question fancifully or not. Actually,
from what I've seen, pain researchers actually do use a 1-10 scale for
the magnitude of pain.

Yes some due but it is hardly a sole standard. The descriptions are probably
more important than the number rankings. There is another common scale that
uses "smiley faces" and that one is probably the best for getting around
nuances of language differences, especially for children.

Quoted message said:

However, I remember once returning from a century ride and a psych grad
student asking us to make out questionnaires about our experience of
pain. Besides magnitude (1-10), we were asked to characterize and
describe pain--dull, sharp, slashing, pounding, etc, etc.
There's no uniform way to objectify what is for all of us a subjective
experience.
Obviously, as a dentist I know a little bit about pain, and asking
these kinds of questions is actually done as an aid in diagnosis and
treatment.

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
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
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
prison camp descrition would have gotten the idea across).

Quoted message said:

Steve

--
Mark & Steven Bornfeld DDS
http://www.dentaltwins.com
Brooklyn, NY
718-258-5001

I find it difficult to relate exercise discomfort to Physical Pain. I
remember getting knocked down, crawling off the road in agony with 7 broken
ribs, one through a lung, others into the tissue of the plural cavity, a
broken collar bone protruding nearly through the skin on my shoulder and a
bunch of road rash that at the time was not even felt. As I was loaded into
the meat wagon I remember thinking that I just wanted to go fast and that I
did not expect to be alive when my wife arrived at the ER.

I think I could give that a ten as I can not imagine any thing hurting more.
Morphine did not dull it, it only caused me to sleep. In sleep the pain
did not subside as I kept dreaming that some big guy was jumping up and down
on my chest. Yes, it was a "10".

Compared to that I would rate the greatest pain ever felt from cycling at 2
or 3 during my winning rides in ten mile TT's.
Exercise induced pain is nothing more than a little temporary discomfort.

Lets just get back to calling it "Perceived Effort" and rate that on a scale
of 1 to 10 like in the old days.

Ken

"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

"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

Do massive muscle cramps count? If so, 7. Also a 7 for the end of an
exceptionally hard hill interval, or hill-top sprint finish, where you think
you're gonna die because you can't get enough oxygen.

Mark
(expecting a 7'ish experience tomorrow in the West LA Circuit Race)

IMKen said:

Quoted message said:

Morphine did not dull it, it only caused me to sleep. In sleep the pain
did not subside as I kept dreaming that some big guy was jumping up and down
on my chest. Yes, it was a "10".

i had the same experience with a similar drug when i was giving birth.
it only made me weak and spineless, and i still felt the pain.

for me, serious pain is when you lose all dignity and completely forget
yourself. i've never experienced that in a race setting.
heather

John Forrest Tomlinson said:

On 06 Aug 2004 19:17:28 EDT, "Jiyang Chen" <[email hidden]> wrote:

Quoted message said:

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

Quoted message said:

I've been in horrendous pain in tailwinds -- this year at the Jiminy
Peak RR in Massachusetts the backstretch had a brutal tailwind and it
was so hard. Guys were flying out the back and the legs were burning.

Sometimes, tailwinds suck.

Tailwinds are like climbs. Right now, people who mostly ride solo are
probably thinking "What the hell is this loon talking about???
Tailwinds are easy, climbs are hard!" Not necessarily when you're
in a group. Reading an exchange about two-man TT pacing on the wattage
list crystallized my opinion on this. So did thinking about why the
tailwind final section of a particular long training ride that I go on
is often very hard (other than that I'm shelled by then, of course).

Tailwinds are like climbs because the relative advantage of drafting is
reduced. For two-man TTs, that means the stronger rider has to be careful
not to drop the weaker rider. For groups, it means that you can't just
conserve energy and sit on the group. If you are weaker, the stronger
riders can simply ride away from you, like on a climb.

It seems to me that when you shoot out the back in a tailwind, you might
not lose as much time as fast as when you get detached in a headwind,
but it has an inexorable feeling as the group recedes up the road.

BTW, the OP might want to Google for the Borg "Rating of Perceived Exertion"
scale (no, not _that_ Borg).

Chris said:

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

Did you know there are several pain scales used in clinical settings? One of
them uses the numeric (1 - 10) rating similar to what you have proposed but
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.

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.

--
--
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], 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
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
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
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.

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.

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?

"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.

I probably don't get above 5 or 6 ever - but if I'm producing a really
good effort I'm not likely to notice pain as much. Best race I ever
did (a rowing race lasting a bit less than 6 minutes) I don't really
remember anything hurting much at all during the race, just not being
able to push as hard as I wanted to in the last 600 metres or so. But
when I tried to do any aerobic work for the next week or so I blew up
massively with my lungs burning within a couple of minutes just at my
normal warm-up pace.

Peter