More exercise may mean less pain

Pushing the limits of pain can be a ticket to sports infamy. Consider Kerri Strug, the gymnast who vaulted onto a sprained ankle in the 1996 Olympics, or L.A. Dodger Kirk Gibson, who hit a game- winning home run in the 1988 World Series while hobbling on a strained knee.

For kinesiology professor Kelli Koltyn, those examples reinforce the idea that physical fitness might also be a ticket to greater pain tolerance. Koltyn studies the intersection between exercise and pain and whether exercise can actually have a pain-relieving effect, not unlike downing a couple aspirin.

By the same token, do the well-conditioned backgrounds of athletes help them push the boundaries of pain further than the rest of us?

“Is exercise capable of producing an analgesic response?”

Her studies have added a new twist to the phrase: “No pain, no gain.”

“When people ask about my research and I tell them I study exercise and pain, the usual response is, ‘I always experience pain when I exercise,'” says Koltyn. “But I’m actually looking at the flip side of the coin: Is exercise capable of producing an analgesic response?”

The results of that question have been mixed in research, but Koltyn has found some encouraging results. In a 1996 study of a group averaging 29 years old, Koltyn found that a vigorous, 30-minute workout on an exercise bike did indeed cause people to feel less pain in a controlled test than before exercising.

Koltyn uses a widely accepted device placed on the index finger to measure pain. The device puts a consistent pressure on the finger, which either the researcher or the subject can stop whenever desired. Koltyn says some subjects respond with pain within seconds, while others go the entire two minutes reporting only mild discomfort.

This line of research has long fascinated Koltyn and stems from her own background as an athlete. She earned an athletic scholarship to John F. Kennedy College in Nebraska when very few scholarships were available to women. Her best event was the 800 meters, but she preferred the higher-speed 200- and 400-meter dashes.

Her interest in athletics and physiology led her to the graduate program in kinesiology at UW–Madison. The program is widely acclaimed for incorporating both physiology and psychology into its teaching and research.

“That interaction of mind and body was the key,” she says.

Koltyn’s most influential experience was taking a graduate seminar on hypnosis and pain. She was fascinated by that mind-body connection, and it led her into a deeper study of pain perception and non-chemical forms of pain relief.

Today, Koltyn’s research is focusing on populations that would benefit most from pain management alternatives, such as the elderly and people with painful chronic diseases. And unlike the pro athlete examples, she’s concerned about exercise that’s within reach of the average person.

In a previous study, Koltyn ran an eight-week strength training program, using hand and ankle weights, with residents of a multiple-care home. Their average age was 82 years old. After the 8-week period, the participants experienced a 50 percent decline in aches and pains associated with everyday life.

She is currently studying a group of people who suffer from arthritis and fibromyalgia, two disorders that can cause a great deal of discomfort in everyday movement. Koltyn is examining whether a regular water aerobics class will produce an analgesic effect.

Koltyn is not ready to declare exercise the ultimate natural pain reliever. In some ways, it’s a Catch 22 for people who risk aggravating injury through exercise, or those who can’t even begin exercising because of the pain involved.

But with the average population getting older – and with pain being a significant problem in aging adults – Koltyn says tha