Injury pain and training discomfort

Sharon Taylor coaches a swimming team that over the years has been plagued by overuse injuries. Yet her team is proud of its hard work ethic. Incorporating swimming psychologist Keith Bell's guidelines (1980), Sharon has taught the team to view the normal discomfort of training (pain) as a sign of growth and progress, as opposed to something awful or intolerable. For her team, normal training discomfort is not a signal to stop but a challenge to do more.

Because Sharon's swimmers have taken their training philosophy too far and misinterpreted Bell's point, Sharon set a goal of having her swimmers distinguish between the discomfort of training and injury pain. At the start of the season she discussed her concerns and asked swimmers who had received overuse injuries the season before to talk about the differences between pushing through workouts (overcoming discomfort) and injury pain (e.g., not stopping or telling the coach when a shoulder ached). She changed the team slogan from "No pain, no gain" to "Train hard and smart." She also revamped the training cycling scheme to include more off days and initiated a team rule that no one could swim or lift weights on the off days. She discussed injury versus discomfort with her swimmers periodically during the season and reinforced correct behavior with praise and occasional rewards. Sharon also informed parents of the need to monitor their children's chronic pains.

As the season progressed, the swimmers began to understand the difference between injury pain and the normal discomfort of hard training. By the end of the season, most of her swimmers remained healthy and excited about the State meet.

4.1. Listen to the text “Injury Pain and Training Discomfort”.

4.2. Answer the questions to the text.

1. What team does Sharon Taylor coach? 2. Over the years she has been plagued by overuse injuries, hasn’t she? 3. How doe Sharon consider training pain? 4. Is normal training discomfort a signal to stop or a challenge to do more for her team? 5. Do her swimmers distinguish between the discomfort of training and injury pain? 6. How has Sharon Taylor changed the team slogan? 7. Why did she revamp the training cycle scheme? 8. What did she discuss with her swimmers periodically? 9. What did Sharon Taylor inform parents about? 10. How do swimmers feel by the end of the season? 11. Do you share Sharon Taylor’s approach to pain?

4.6. Match the words from both columns.