The relationship between pain and beliefs: the fear avoidance model

The relationship between pain and beliefs: the fear avoidance model⭕️

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Dealing with injuries/pain and especially chronic pain.. sucks. And if you’ve been training for a while or even simply living, chances are you’ve experienced some level of pain.

How we deal with it, however, but also how we behave around it, how we talk about it *, how we react to it, all matter, and if we really want to recover and be able to move forward, we need to educate ourselves on how pain works and what can trigger “pain signals” (nociception).

In this small infographic, we can see two types of behavior, with the best outcome being of course the one on the right, yet, the one on the left is likely the most common.

If we want to improve our condition, we need to fully accept the fact that we are in pain, while acknowledging that being fearful of movement will not help overcome the situation. This is generally easier to accept once we understand the positive adaptations that our bodies undergo with resistance as that opens us more to a progressive exposure to training stimuli.

In fact continuous exposure to training will only be beneficial for our health ( NOT its avoidance).

Only by slowly exposing ourselves to pain, being comfortable with experiencing it in a sense, within our own perceived level of comfortability – but with the goal of restoring full movement – will help us overcome the negative loop we get stuck within. What do you think ? I’d love to hear your feedback!