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The Guardian
3 days ago
- Sport
- The Guardian
The fascinating science of pain – and why everyone feels it differently
Some say it was John Sattler's own fault. The lead-up to the 1970 rugby league grand final had been tense; the team he led, the South Sydney Rabbitohs, had lost the 1969 final. Here was an opportunity for redemption. The Rabbitohs were not about to let glory slip through their fingers again. Soon after the starting whistle, Sattler went in for a tackle. As he untangled – in a move not uncommon in the sport at the time – he gave the Manly Sea Eagles' John Bucknall a clip on the ear. Seconds later – just three minutes into the game – the towering second rower returned favour with force: Bucknall's mighty right arm bore down on Sattler, breaking his jaw in three places and tearing his skin; he would later need eight stitches. When his teammate Bob McCarthy turned to check on him, he saw his captain spurting blood, his jaw hanging low. Forty years later Sattler would recall that moment. One thought raged in his shattered head: 'I have never felt pain like this in my life.' But he played on. Tackling heaving muscular players as they advanced. Being tackled in turn, around the head, as he pushed forward. All the while he could feel his jaw in pieces. At half-time the Rabbitohs were leading. In the locker room, Sattler warned his teammates, 'Don't play me out of this grand final.' McCarthy told him, 'Mate, you've got to go off.' He refused. 'I'm staying.' Sattler played the whole game. The remaining 77 minutes. At the end, he gave a speech and ran a lap of honour. The Rabbitohs had won. The back page of the next day's Sunday Mirror screamed 'BROKEN JAW HERO'. A photograph of Sattler, his heavy green and red jersey rolled up to the elbows, the neck grubby with blood, his mangled swollen jaw, carried on the shoulders of teammates, has become one of Australian sport's most well-known images. His grand final performance has been hailed as 'the most famous show of playing through pain in Australian sporting history'. Sattler, inextricably linked to the jaw he ultimately had to have wired back together, for decades hence was lauded for his courage, celebrated as one of the toughest men to have played the game. Because John Sattler could withstand the pain. How can a person bitten by a shark calmly paddle their surfboard to safety, then later liken the sensation of the predator clamping down on their limb to the feeling of someone giving their arm 'a shake'? How is it that a woman can have a cyst on her ovary burst, her abdomen steadily fill with blood, but continue working at her desk for six hours? Or that a soldier can have his legs blown off then direct his own emergency treatment? Each one of us feels pain. We all stub our toes, burn our fingers, knock our knees. And worse. The problem with living in just one mind and body is that we can never know whether our six out of 10 on the pain scale is the same as the patient in the chair next to us. About one in five adults experience chronic pain; it can be debilitating and patients have been historically dismissed, disrespected and under-treated. Acute pain is different; it's short periods of pain usually associated with an injury, illness or tissue damage. Because all humans experience acute injury or illness, we each have a sense of our pain response. Many of us wonder, 'Do I have a high pain threshold?' And we have each at some point been asked – by a doctor, by a nurse, by a teammate – 'What's your pain on a scale of one to 10?' The ability of some people to experience serious injury without appearing to feel serious pain has been fodder for legend and research for centuries. Withstanding pain has been heralded as heroism or a freakish anomaly. But what is happening in the body and mind of a person who does not seem to feel the pain they 'should' be feeling. Do we all have the capacity to be one of these heroic freaks? And how did John Sattler play those 77 minutes? Questions like these rattled around the mind of Lorimer Moseley when he showed up at Sydney's Royal North Shore hospital years ago as an undergraduate physiotherapy student. He wanted to interrogate a quip made by a neurology professor as he left the lecture theatre one day, that the worst injuries are often the least painful. So Moseley sat in the emergency room and watched people come in, recording their injuries and asking them how much they hurt. 'And this guy came in with a hammer stuck in his neck – the curly bit had got in the back and was coming out the front and blood was pouring all down,' Moseley recalls. 'But he was relaxed. He just walked in holding the hammer, relaxed. Totally fine.' Then the man turned around, hit his knee on a low table and began jumping up and down at the pain of the small knock. 'And I think, 'Whoa, what is happening there?'' The curious student ruled out drugs, alcohol, shock. He realised that the reason the man did not feel pain from his hammer injury was due to the very point of pain itself. Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads 'Pain is a feeling that motivates us to protect ourselves,' says Moseley, now the chair in physiotherapy and a professor of clinical neurosciences at the University of South Australia. 'One of the beautiful things about pain is that it will motivate us to protect the body part that's in danger, really anatomically specific – it can narrow it right down to a tiny little spot.' It is an evolutionary self-protection response that meant the man with the hammer in his neck did not appear to feel pain. To feel pain would not have aided his survival in that moment, Moseley says. Instead, fear is probably what impelled him to race to the emergency ward. 'So these people on the battlefield, their arm gets ripped off, they look for their arm, they pick it up, they walk to safety, no arm pain. Perfect. That is an extraordinarily bold and sophisticated protective system.' Prof Michael Nicholas is used to stories like these. 'You can see it in probably every hospital ward. If you stay around long enough you'll hear comments like 'this person has more pain than they should have' or 'you might be surprised that they're not in pain',' he says. 'What that highlights to me is the general tendency for all of us to think there should be a close relationship between a stimulus like an injury or a noxious event and the degree of pain the person feels. 'In fact, that's generally wrong. But it doesn't stop us believing it.' The reason we get it wrong, Nicholas says, 'is that we have a sort of mind-body problem'. Eastern medicine and philosophy has long recognised the interconnectedness of body and mind, and so too did the west in early civilisations. In ancient Greece the Algea, the gods of physical pain, were also gods associated with psychic pain – with grief and distress. But in the 1600s the French philosopher René Descartes set western thinking on a different course, asserting that the mind and body were separate entities. 'In a lot of countries we tend to want to downplay any possible psychological influences and we want to say it's all physical,' says Nicholas, a director at the University of Sydney's Pain Management Research Institute. Being told that pain has a psychological component can be distressing, particularly for those who experience chronic pain. It can feel dismissive, a suggestion that the pain is not real. 'When people come to see me, they're often worried they're being told it's all in their head,' Nicholas says. 'Of course pain is in your head. It's in your brain. You know, it's the brain that is where you get that experience … It's never all physical.' The true of people who tolerate acute pain. It's never all physical. And it has little to do with heroism or freakishness. Sometime between 11am and 11.30am on 22 May 2024, as I sat at a big white conference table, before a screen of colleagues zooming into a meeting, a cyst on my right ovary exploded. I felt pain right away. With my right hand, I pressed hard into my lower stomach and breathed in and out slowly to ride through the feeling. Jesus, I thought. I shouldn't have eaten so many Jols. I returned to my desk but still felt sore so went for a walk around the block to shake it off. I felt a little better, returned to my computer, popped in and out of smaller meetings, answered emails, edited articles, finished work at 5.30pm, then walked half an hour to my sister's apartment and lay on her couch. While the pain was fairly strong I was still convinced an overconsumption of sugar-free sweets was responsible. Only when my sister called a helpline two hours later and a nurse told me to go to hospital did I relent. We arrived at emergency about 9pm, 10 hours after that first sharp twinge. Later in the night, as I climbed on to an examination bed, I froze. Pain sloshing around my abdomen violently halted my movement. As I stopped there silent, halfway to laying down, I saw the serious look on the doctor's face. Sign up to Five Great Reads Each week our editors select five of the most interesting, entertaining and thoughtful reads published by Guardian Australia and our international colleagues. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Saturday morning after newsletter promotion I realised that perhaps my report of my pain was an unreliable guide. She was looking for other clues. (I would later learn that medical staff use self-reported pain as only one of a few measures to assess a patient, others include observations of movement, the ability to talk, facial expressions and guarding.) It was the middle of the night before an MRI returned the findings that I had spent the day with what the doctor called 'a belly full of blood'. The next day I had surgery. At my bedside an obstetric surgeon shook his head as he explained what was going on in my body. A burst cyst has a reputation for being very painful, he said. Why had I rated my pain as a six or seven? Didn't it make more sense to give it a 10? I shrugged. I'd wanted to give myself some wriggle room. So why was my experience and report of pain so out of whack with the tissue damage my body experienced? 'It actually starts with our judgments,' says Associate Prof Melissa Day, from the University of Queensland. 'So it's not what happens to us. It's how we judge what happens to us.' In other words, if we give ourselves a convincing explanation for what we feel, an explanation that does not include danger or damage to our body – if we think it's the Jols and it will pass – we are less likely to feel pain severely. We have a tendency to valorise those who do not complain of pain when they confront an acute injury. To say this is a tough person, a stoic person. But individual toughness or weakness is not what's at play in pain responses, and the same person can have two entirely different reactions to pain-inducing events in different contexts. When Lorimer Moseley tried a heat pad pain test on himself, increasing the temperature on the pad on his hand and noting his rising pain levels, it took removing the pad from his skin to realise he had given himself two-and-a-half-degree burn. 'This happens to people who do a lot of pain research because you just get exposed and your brain doesn't think it's worth protecting you as much as it should,' he says. 'But I put my hand in hot water to do the dishes – I'm hopeless.' Just five years ago the International Association for the Study of Pain revised its definition of pain. The new definition follows what is called a bio-psychosocial model, which recognises not just the biological causes of pain but the role of psychology and social context in creating, amplifying – or dulling – it. While this is the contemporary thinking about pain, says Nicholas: 'Most people don't use it. Most clinicians, unfortunately, even.' The biological causes are clearest. Pain tolerance, researchers speaking to Guardian Australia say, has some genetic component. Red-haired people, for example, Moseley says, have on average a different threshold at which their nerves are triggered by a change in temperature in a heat-based pain threshold test. Complex social factors play a substantial role: multiple studies have found that people from a lower socioeconomic status experience both more chronic pain and, in experimental pain tests, demonstrate lower acute pain thresholds. For all people, injury or tissue damage activates the brain's warning system that creates pain. The associated stress can trigger a psycho-biological response that helps the hurt person get through it without being immobilised. 'Short-term stress actually motivates us,' Day says. 'Gets adrenaline pumping through our bodies, allows us to have natural endorphins to push through. There's also endogenous opioids that our brain releases to have that short-term relief of pain.' The psychological elements are becoming more widely understood. 'One thing we know is perhaps the strongest predictor of pain tolerance is how people think about pain,' Day says. 'If we think 'this is terrible, this is awful, it's going to do me serious damage' – those types of people will have lower tolerance.' This includes people who tend to be anxious or who catastrophise pain. The perception of the damage being done can have a substantial role. A violinist is more likely to report higher levels of pain when a pain stimulus is applied to their dominant playing hand than when their other hand is subjected to the same stimulus, Moseley says – because an injury to their dominant hand could end their career. Farmers are known to delay seeking treatment , he adds. 'It might be that farmers expect that a part of being a farmer is to have pain. So [their brain] doesn't urge them to do anything about it. Their expectation is: you have pain.' Our past experience of pain also plays a substantial role. Should I have another cyst explode, Moseley suggests I might feel more pain – I will have learned that this sensation signals serious damage and should not be ignored. Research suggests men generally have higher pain thresholds than women. Pain fluctuates for women at periods of hormonal change. Moseley says differences in sensitivity in immune systems and response to hormones plays a part. But so does 'the way that they're related to from birth'. 'Nature versus nurture – you can't really separate them,' Day says. 'There's a range of factors there in terms of learning histories about pain and how from a young age responses to pain are very much linked to gender as well – how parents respond to a son versus a daughter.' As psychologists working in pain, Day and Nicholas are interested in what behaviours might help people in pain tolerate or reduce the amount of pain they are experiencing. 'The best coping techniques will be different for different individuals and will be different across different contexts' Day says. Nevertheless, for acute pain suppression – 'I'm not thinking about this because I've got this goal I need to achieve' – can work well in the short term, says Day. ('Longer term, it rebounds.') Emotional regulation strategies, meditation and learning how to calm the body can be effective. Working on beliefs about the pain and shifting attention away from it, says Nicholas, fall under individual control. 'If you can control those factors you will have a better response to pain,' Day says. An individual's sensitivity to reward and punishment plays a role in acute pain thresholds too, Day says. People who are more sensitive to punishment tend more often to retract at the appearance of pain, whereas those more oriented towards rewards are more likely to push through it to achieve a goal, she says. Elite athletes are known to have higher pain thresholds as they are habituated to pain in their training regimes. Which is to say, if you are in a grand final and you think you've got a shot at winning, and you know the national team selectors are watching, your fixation on your goal might increase your ability to ignore the pain radiating from your jaw. Is that what made John Sattler play on? I will never know. He died in 2023. But we know he had all the predispositions for withstanding acute injury: he was habituated to pain as an athlete in a game famed for its big hits, he was reward-oriented in a moment when the stakes were high, he was a male socialised to value withstanding pain as a badge of toughness, and saw toughness valued as a social virtue. The clash would have got his endogenous opioids pumping. His attention was redirected away from his injury. Pain is a protective mechanism but, from all we know about that day, Sattler judged protecting his jaw as less important than claiming the premiership. 'People who think they have a higher pain threshold – we will never know,' Moseley says. 'It's the same human that makes the pain and that tolerates it.' And so the experience of acute pain is caught in the realm of mystery and mythology; where we can understand much of what is happening in a body and part of what is happening in a brain but never actually know what another person feels. The legend of John Sattler goes that after that fateful right hook from Bucknall, the bloodied captain turned to his teammate Matthew Cleary. That no one knew, perhaps not even himself, the damage that had been done to him became his mythological power. 'Hold me up,' he said. 'So they don't know I'm hurt.'
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Sport
- The Guardian
The fascinating science of pain – and why everyone feels it differently
Some say it was John Sattler's own fault. The lead-up to the 1970 rugby league grand final had been tense; the team he led, the South Sydney Rabbitohs, had lost the 1969 final. Here was an opportunity for redemption. The Rabbitohs were not about to let glory slip through their fingers again. Soon after the starting whistle, Sattler went in for a tackle. As he untangled – in a move not uncommon in the sport at the time – he gave the Manly Sea Eagles' John Bucknall a clip on the ear. Seconds later – just three minutes into the game – the towering second rower returned favour with force: Bucknall's mighty right arm bore down on Sattler, breaking his jaw in three places and tearing his skin; he would later need eight stitches. When his teammate Bob McCarthy turned to check on him, he saw his captain spurting blood, his jaw hanging low. Forty years later Sattler would recall that moment. One thought raged in his shattered head: 'I have never felt pain like this in my life.' But he played on. Tackling heaving muscular players as they advanced. Being tackled in turn, around the head, as he pushed forward. All the while he could feel his jaw in pieces. At half-time the Rabbitohs were leading. In the locker room, Sattler warned his teammates, 'Don't play me out of this grand final.' McCarthy told him, 'Mate, you've got to go off.' He refused. 'I'm staying.' Sattler played the whole game. The remaining 77 minutes. At the end, he gave a speech and ran a lap of honour. The Rabbitohs had won. The back page of the next day's Sunday Mirror screamed 'BROKEN JAW HERO'. A photograph of Sattler, his heavy green and red jersey rolled up to the elbows, the neck grubby with blood, his mangled swollen jaw, carried on the shoulders of teammates, has become one of Australian sport's most well-known images. His grand final performance has been hailed as 'the most famous show of playing through pain in Australian sporting history'. Sattler, inextricably linked to the jaw he ultimately had to have wired back together, for decades hence was lauded for his courage, celebrated as one of the toughest men to have played the game. Because John Sattler could withstand the pain. How can a person bitten by a shark calmly paddle their surfboard to safety, then later liken the sensation of the predator clamping down on their limb to the feeling of someone giving their arm 'a shake'? How is it that a woman can have a cyst on her ovary burst, her abdomen steadily fill with blood, but continue working at her desk for six hours? Or that a soldier can have his legs blown off then direct his own emergency treatment? Each one of us feels pain. We all stub our toes, burn our fingers, knock our knees. And worse. The problem with living in just one mind and body is that we can never know whether our six out of 10 on the pain scale is the same as the patient in the chair next to us. About one in five adults experience chronic pain; it can be debilitating and patients have been historically dismissed, disrespected and under-treated. Acute pain is different; it's short periods of pain usually associated with an injury, illness or tissue damage. Because all humans experience acute injury or illness, we each have a sense of our pain response. Many of us wonder, 'Do I have a high pain threshold?' And we have each at some point been asked – by a doctor, by a nurse, by a teammate – 'What's your pain on a scale of one to 10?' The ability of some people to experience serious injury without appearing to feel serious pain has been fodder for legend and research for centuries. Withstanding pain has been heralded as heroism or a freakish anomaly. But what is happening in the body and mind of a person who does not seem to feel the pain they 'should' be feeling. Do we all have the capacity to be one of these heroic freaks? And how did John Sattler play those 77 minutes? Questions like these rattled around the mind of Lorimer Moseley when he showed up at Sydney's Royal North Shore hospital years ago as an undergraduate physiotherapy student. He wanted to interrogate a quip made by a neurology professor as he left the lecture theatre one day, that the worst injuries are often the least painful. So Moseley sat in the emergency room and watched people come in, recording their injuries and asking them how much they hurt. 'And this guy came in with a hammer stuck in his neck – the curly bit had got in the back and was coming out the front and blood was pouring all down,' Moseley recalls. 'But he was relaxed. He just walked in holding the hammer, relaxed. Totally fine.' Then the man turned around, hit his knee on a low table and began jumping up and down at the pain of the small knock. 'And I think, 'Whoa, what is happening there?'' The curious student ruled out drugs, alcohol, shock. He realised that the reason the man did not feel pain from his hammer injury was due to the very point of pain itself. Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads 'Pain is a feeling that motivates us to protect ourselves,' says Moseley, now the chair in physiotherapy and a professor of clinical neurosciences at the University of South Australia. 'One of the beautiful things about pain is that it will motivate us to protect the body part that's in danger, really anatomically specific – it can narrow it right down to a tiny little spot.' It is an evolutionary self-protection response that meant the man with the hammer in his neck did not appear to feel pain. To feel pain would not have aided his survival in that moment, Moseley says. Instead, fear is probably what impelled him to race to the emergency ward. 'So these people on the battlefield, their arm gets ripped off, they look for their arm, they pick it up, they walk to safety, no arm pain. Perfect. That is an extraordinarily bold and sophisticated protective system.' Prof Michael Nicholas is used to stories like these. 'You can see it in probably every hospital ward. If you stay around long enough you'll hear comments like 'this person has more pain than they should have' or 'you might be surprised that they're not in pain',' he says. 'What that highlights to me is the general tendency for all of us to think there should be a close relationship between a stimulus like an injury or a noxious event and the degree of pain the person feels. 'In fact, that's generally wrong. But it doesn't stop us believing it.' The reason we get it wrong, Nicholas says, 'is that we have a sort of mind-body problem'. Eastern medicine and philosophy has long recognised the interconnectedness of body and mind, and so too did the west in early civilisations. In ancient Greece the Algea, the gods of physical pain, were also gods associated with psychic pain – with grief and distress. But in the 1600s the French philosopher René Descartes set western thinking on a different course, asserting that the mind and body were separate entities. 'In a lot of countries we tend to want to downplay any possible psychological influences and we want to say it's all physical,' says Nicholas, a director at the University of Sydney's Pain Management Research Institute. Being told that pain has a psychological component can be distressing, particularly for those who experience chronic pain. It can feel dismissive, a suggestion that the pain is not real. 'When people come to see me, they're often worried they're being told it's all in their head,' Nicholas says. 'Of course pain is in your head. It's in your brain. You know, it's the brain that is where you get that experience … It's never all physical.' The true of people who tolerate acute pain. It's never all physical. And it has little to do with heroism or freakishness. Sometime between 11am and 11.30am on 22 May 2024, as I sat at a big white conference table, before a screen of colleagues zooming into a meeting, a cyst on my right ovary exploded. I felt pain right away. With my right hand, I pressed hard into my lower stomach and breathed in and out slowly to ride through the feeling. Jesus, I thought. I shouldn't have eaten so many Jols. I returned to my desk but still felt sore so went for a walk around the block to shake it off. I felt a little better, returned to my computer, popped in and out of smaller meetings, answered emails, edited articles, finished work at 5.30pm, then walked half an hour to my sister's apartment and lay on her couch. While the pain was fairly strong I was still convinced an overconsumption of sugar-free sweets was responsible. Only when my sister called a helpline two hours later and a nurse told me to go to hospital did I relent. We arrived at emergency about 9pm, 10 hours after that first sharp twinge. Later in the night, as I climbed on to an examination bed, I froze. Pain sloshing around my abdomen violently halted my movement. As I stopped there silent, halfway to laying down, I saw the serious look on the doctor's face. Sign up to Five Great Reads Each week our editors select five of the most interesting, entertaining and thoughtful reads published by Guardian Australia and our international colleagues. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Saturday morning after newsletter promotion I realised that perhaps my report of my pain was an unreliable guide. She was looking for other clues. (I would later learn that medical staff use self-reported pain as only one of a few measures to assess a patient, others include observations of movement, the ability to talk, facial expressions and guarding.) It was the middle of the night before an MRI returned the findings that I had spent the day with what the doctor called 'a belly full of blood'. The next day I had surgery. At my bedside an obstetric surgeon shook his head as he explained what was going on in my body. A burst cyst has a reputation for being very painful, he said. Why had I rated my pain as a six or seven? Didn't it make more sense to give it a 10? I shrugged. I'd wanted to give myself some wriggle room. So why was my experience and report of pain so out of whack with the tissue damage my body experienced? 'It actually starts with our judgments,' says Associate Prof Melissa Day, from the University of Queensland. 'So it's not what happens to us. It's how we judge what happens to us.' In other words, if we give ourselves a convincing explanation for what we feel, an explanation that does not include danger or damage to our body – if we think it's the Jols and it will pass – we are less likely to feel pain severely. We have a tendency to valorise those who do not complain of pain when they confront an acute injury. To say this is a tough person, a stoic person. But individual toughness or weakness is not what's at play in pain responses, and the same person can have two entirely different reactions to pain-inducing events in different contexts. When Lorimer Moseley tried a heat pad pain test on himself, increasing the temperature on the pad on his hand and noting his rising pain levels, it took removing the pad from his skin to realise he had given himself two-and-a-half-degree burn. 'This happens to people who do a lot of pain research because you just get exposed and your brain doesn't think it's worth protecting you as much as it should,' he says. 'But I put my hand in hot water to do the dishes – I'm hopeless.' Just five years ago the International Association for the Study of Pain revised its definition of pain. The new definition follows what is called a bio-psychosocial model, which recognises not just the biological causes of pain but the role of psychology and social context in creating, amplifying – or dulling – it. While this is the contemporary thinking about pain, says Nicholas: 'Most people don't use it. Most clinicians, unfortunately, even.' The biological causes are clearest. Pain tolerance, researchers speaking to Guardian Australia say, has some genetic component. Red-haired people, for example, Moseley says, have on average a different threshold at which their nerves are triggered by a change in temperature in a heat-based pain threshold test. Complex social factors play a substantial role: multiple studies have found that people from a lower socioeconomic status experience both more chronic pain and, in experimental pain tests, demonstrate lower acute pain thresholds. For all people, injury or tissue damage activates the brain's warning system that creates pain. The associated stress can trigger a psycho-biological response that helps the hurt person get through it without being immobilised. 'Short-term stress actually motivates us,' Day says. 'Gets adrenaline pumping through our bodies, allows us to have natural endorphins to push through. There's also endogenous opioids that our brain releases to have that short-term relief of pain.' The psychological elements are becoming more widely understood. 'One thing we know is perhaps the strongest predictor of pain tolerance is how people think about pain,' Day says. 'If we think 'this is terrible, this is awful, it's going to do me serious damage' – those types of people will have lower tolerance.' This includes people who tend to be anxious or who catastrophise pain. The perception of the damage being done can have a substantial role. A violinist is more likely to report higher levels of pain when a pain stimulus is applied to their dominant playing hand than when their other hand is subjected to the same stimulus, Moseley says – because an injury to their dominant hand could end their career. Farmers are known to delay seeking treatment , he adds. 'It might be that farmers expect that a part of being a farmer is to have pain. So [their brain] doesn't urge them to do anything about it. Their expectation is: you have pain.' Our past experience of pain also plays a substantial role. Should I have another cyst explode, Moseley suggests I might feel more pain – I will have learned that this sensation signals serious damage and should not be ignored. Research suggests men generally have higher pain thresholds than women. Pain fluctuates for women at periods of hormonal change. Moseley says differences in sensitivity in immune systems and response to hormones plays a part. But so does 'the way that they're related to from birth'. 'Nature versus nurture – you can't really separate them,' Day says. 'There's a range of factors there in terms of learning histories about pain and how from a young age responses to pain are very much linked to gender as well – how parents respond to a son versus a daughter.' As psychologists working in pain, Day and Nicholas are interested in what behaviours might help people in pain tolerate or reduce the amount of pain they are experiencing. 'The best coping techniques will be different for different individuals and will be different across different contexts' Day says. Nevertheless, for acute pain suppression – 'I'm not thinking about this because I've got this goal I need to achieve' – can work well in the short term, says Day. ('Longer term, it rebounds.') Emotional regulation strategies, meditation and learning how to calm the body can be effective. Working on beliefs about the pain and shifting attention away from it, says Nicholas, fall under individual control. 'If you can control those factors you will have a better response to pain,' Day says. An individual's sensitivity to reward and punishment plays a role in acute pain thresholds too, Day says. People who are more sensitive to punishment tend more often to retract at the appearance of pain, whereas those more oriented towards rewards are more likely to push through it to achieve a goal, she says. Elite athletes are known to have higher pain thresholds as they are habituated to pain in their training regimes. Which is to say, if you are in a grand final and you think you've got a shot at winning, and you know the national team selectors are watching, your fixation on your goal might increase your ability to ignore the pain radiating from your jaw. Is that what made John Sattler play on? I will never know. He died in 2023. But we know he had all the predispositions for withstanding acute injury: he was habituated to pain as an athlete in a game famed for its big hits, he was reward-oriented in a moment when the stakes were high, he was a male socialised to value withstanding pain as a badge of toughness, and saw toughness valued as a social virtue. The clash would have got his endogenous opioids pumping. His attention was redirected away from his injury. Pain is a protective mechanism but, from all we know about that day, Sattler judged protecting his jaw as less important than claiming the premiership. 'People who think they have a higher pain threshold – we will never know,' Moseley says. 'It's the same human that makes the pain and that tolerates it.' And so the experience of acute pain is caught in the realm of mystery and mythology; where we can understand much of what is happening in a body and part of what is happening in a brain but never actually know what another person feels. The legend of John Sattler goes that after that fateful right hook from Bucknall, the bloodied captain turned to his teammate Matthew Cleary. That no one knew, perhaps not even himself, the damage that had been done to him became his mythological power. 'Hold me up,' he said. 'So they don't know I'm hurt.'
The Sun
5 days ago
- Sport
- The Sun
Wimbledon 2025 LIVE RESULTS: New champion guaranteed as Amanda Anisimova clashes Iga Swiatek in HUGE final
WIMBLEDON 2025 has reached its grand finales after a stunning fortnight at SW19 - with the women's final set to take place TODAY! The Wimbledon women's singles final is here, and we are guaranteed a new champion in 2025, as Iga Swiatek clashes Amanda Anisimova! Anisimova shocked world No 1 Aryna Sabalenka to make it to her first final, while Iga Swiatek dominated against Belinda Bencic. Tomorrow will see Carlos Alcaraz defend his crown, and look for a third successive title, as he takes on Jannik Sinner in the men's singles final. WIMBLEDON 2025 FREE BETS AND SIGN UP OFFERS Follow our live blog below... 11th Jul 2025, 15:03 By Etienne Fermie Alcaraz 6-4 5-7 Fritz* An Alcaraz backhand strikes the net cord and plops wide, 0-15. Fritz brilliantly neutralises a 134mph first serve before unleashing a forehand winner of his own, 0-30! Centre Court gasps as Alcaraz double faults - Fritz has three set points! Alcaraz bizarrely whacks a forehand long and Taylor Fritz takes the second set! Finally some drama to liven this one up! 11th Jul 2025, 14:58 By Etienne Fermie Alcaraz* 6-4 5-6 Fritz Fritz begins by netting a backhand off an Alcaraz return, 0-15. The Spaniard then misses a return long, 15-15. Alcaraz sends another return long, 30-15. Fritz changes the pace with an 85mph second serve, which bamboozles his opponent into a miss, 40-15. Fritz shakes his arms out after missing a backhand ,40-30. The American fist pumps to his box as Alcaraz misses another return, 6-5. 11th Jul 2025, 14:55 By Etienne Fermie Alcaraz 6-4 5-5 Fritz* A Fritz return floats long, 15-0. The American then forces Alcaraz wide before creeping in and executing an excellent drop volley at the net, 15-15. A deep return allows the No5 seed to dictate off the forehand, forcing a miss and moving to 15-30... plenty of shouts of "Come on Taylor!" from the crowd! Alcaraz peculiarly slices a forehand onto Fritz's forehand side, but his opponent nets, 30-30. A Fritz return flies into the net, 40-30. Alcaraz then shuts the door completely by acing down the T and hold, 5-5. 11th Jul 2025, 14:50 By Etienne Fermie Alcaraz* 6-4 4-5 Fritz Fritz hammers down a 130mph ace down the T, 15-0. The American then misses an edgy backhand down the line, 15-15. Alcaraz grunts as he attempts to whack inside-in forehand, but only finds the net for his effort, 30-15. Centre Court erupts again as Fritz conjures a sensational backhand passing shot! That was amazing. Alcaraz nets a second serve and will next step up and serve to stay in the second set. 11th Jul 2025, 14:47 By Etienne Fermie Alcaraz 6-4 4-4 Fritz* Fritz begins the game with an exceptional backhand return winner, leaving Alcaraz helpless, 0-15. Play is momentarily halted due to a medical incident in the crowd. After around a minute we continue, and Alcaraz hammers down a serve for 15-15. The Spaniard is clearly feeling excellent on his serve, and thwacks down a 135mph delivery down the T to move to 30-15. Fritz fist pumps to his box after working a point excellently before unleashing a brilliant backhand winner down the line, 30-30, several fans within Centre Court are trying to get behind the underdog. Play is then momentarily halted again due to another medical incident in the stands, it is very hot today here in South West London. After another minute or so play resumes. Wow! Centre Court is finally rocking as Fritz sets up a break point with some sensational defence to offence tennis! Alcaraz saves the break point with a 136mph delivery that Fritz can't get back. Dare I say that was met by a few groans around Centre Court? No matter, the No2 seed grabs a game point with a trademark drop shot. Fritz then narrowly misses a forehand on the run and Alcaraz escapes to hold. 11th Jul 2025, 14:38 By Etienne Fermie Alcaraz* 6-4 3-4 Fritz A short return sets up an easy forehand put away for Fritz, 15-0. The American winces after sending a routine backhand into the net, 15-15. Alcaraz gets into a rally off a decent return, but frustratingly misses a backhand long, 30-15. A big 138mph serve out wide moves Fritz to 40-15. The American seals yet another quick hold. We remain on serve in the second set. 11th Jul 2025, 14:35 By Etienne Fermie Alcaraz 6-4 3-3 Fritz* A 135mph serve down the T gets Alcaraz to 15-0. A beautifully executed serve and volley then moves the Spaniard to 30-0. Fritz fires well long off a wide serve by Alcaraz, 40-0. Another serve and volley seals a quick hold. Both players are producing excellent, clean tennis on serve - but the match is yet to produce many moments of jeopardy or drama. 11th Jul 2025, 14:32 By Etienne Fermie Alcaraz* 6-4 2-3 Fritz Alcaraz nets a return, 15-0. He then sends his next return long, 30-0. The Spaniard slices long following a brilliant backhand slice by Fritz, 40-0. A huge serve and drive volley combo seals a hold to love for the American. Both players have served very well barring Fritz's opener in the first set. Dare I say Centre Court is slightly subdued? In the sweltering heat, the atmosphere hasn't quite gotten going yet. 11th Jul 2025, 14:30 By Etienne Fermie Alcaraz 6-4 2-2 Fritz* Alcaraz executes a deft drop volley off a Fritz return, 15-0. The American then sends a forehand harmlessly into the net, 30-0. Fritz's next return is a belter, however, flying up the line for a clean winner and raising the roof off Centre Court, 30-15. The No5 seed can't get a 133mph serve out wide back, 40-15. Alcaraz attempts another serve and volley, but just misses at the net, 40-30. Fritz's fist pumps towards his box as Alcaraz sends a forehand into the net, deuce. This is the most joy that the American has had in one of his opponent's service games thus far. No matter, Alcaraz wins a bruising baseline exchange by coming in and putting away a smash. Fritz then looks to have taken control of the next point with an excellent return, but having worked it well, he then misses at the net. 11th Jul 2025, 14:23 By Etienne Fermie Alcaraz* 6-4 1-2 Fritz Fritz hammers down a huge 136mph ace down the T! The American then winces as he sends a forehand narrowly long, 15-15. A monster 139mph first serve down the T gets Fritz to 30-15. Alcaraz then wildly returns well long for 40-15. The Spaniard sends a backhand crosscourt well wide and Fritz holds. 11th Jul 2025, 14:21 By Etienne Fermie Alcaraz 6-4 1-1 Fritz* Fritz attempts a tweener after being lobbed by Alcaraz, but his shot dribbles into the net, 15-0. The American can then only send a big serve up the T well long, 30-0. Fritz sends a lazy forehand return into the net, 40-0. Alcaraz executes a brilliant serve and volley to hold to love - another lightning quick service game by the reigning champion. 11th Jul 2025, 14:19 By Etienne Fermie Alcaraz* 6-4 0-1 Fritz Fritz opens the second set with a confidence-boosting serve and forehand winner combo, 15-0. The American then fires down a 136mph ace out wide, 30-0. Alcaraz then wallops a forehand, but narrowly misses the baseline, 40-0. The Spaniard then leaks another error off that wing and Fritz holds. Having been broken in the opening game of the match, Fritz will be relieved to have avoided the same fate at the start of the second set. 11th Jul 2025, 14:15 By Etienne Fermie Alcaraz 6-4 Fritz* Fritz has a little bit of treatment during the change of ends. His feet were bothering him during his quarter-final win over Karen Khachanov - but it appears that his elbow is bleeding following that previous dive attempt. Alcaraz begins with a huge 137mph ace down the T, 15-0. The Spaniard aces again for 30-0. Pressure? What pressure? Fritz misses a return to bring up three set points for his opponent. Alcaraz only needs one, dropping a shot onto his opponent's feet, which Fritz can't get back. By Etienne Fermie Alcaraz* 5-4 Fritz Serving to stay in this first set, Fritz begins with an ace out wide. Fritz then eventually nets following a bruising backhand-to-backhand exchange, 15-15. A first serve brings Fritz's forehand into play, the American dictating the rally before executing a perfect smash winner, 30-15. Alcaraz wins a sensational exchange, getting up a Fritz drop shot before delicately nudging the ball beyond the American, who dramatically dived in vein to try to reach it, the crowd loved that one! At 30-30, Alcaraz produces some excellent defence before Fritz breaks down to cough up an error, set point the Spaniard... Fritz saves it with an excellent forehand winner, having sent Alcaraz scrambling across the court with an excellent backhand down the line, deuce. Alcaraz slices a backhand return into the net from Fritz's next serve. And Fritz holds with another magnificent backhand down the line. The reigning champion will serve for the first set. 11th Jul 2025, 14:06 By Etienne Fermie Alcaraz 5-3 Fritz* A brilliant serve and drive volley combo earns the first point of the eighth game for Alcaraz, 15-0. The Spaniard then delights the purring crowd by thwacking a forehand winner off a shanked Fritz return. The American then shanks another return, this time long, for 40-0. A gorgeous serve and drop shot combo gets the job done for Alcaraz in the blink of an eye, 5-3. 11th Jul 2025, 14:03 By Etienne Fermie Alcaraz* 4-3 Fritz Alcaraz begins the game by narrowly missing an audacious drop shot, 15-0. Fritz then delights the crowd with an ace down the T, 30-0. The American perfectly executes a drop shot of his own following a net cord, 40-0. Fritz then thwacks a forehand on the run long, 40-15. Alcaraz looks to wallop his next forehand, but is closer to hitting the back wall than the court. Game, Fritz. 11th Jul 2025, 14:00 By Etienne Fermie Alcaraz 4-2 Fritz* After seemingly washing out whatever was in his eye, Alcaraz steps up to serve... The Spaniard nets a Fritz approach shot out wide, 0-15. Alcaraz responds by whacking a 130mph right on the line for an ace down the T, 15-15. The reigning champion then aces out wide for 30-15. A brilliant backhand return allows Fritz to dictate the next point, Alcaraz eventually coughing up an error long, 30-30. Another serve out wide does the trick to get Alcaraz to 40-30. Fritz shanks a forehand long and Alcaraz holds. 11th Jul 2025, 13:54 By Etienne Fermie Alcaraz* 3-2 Fritz Alcaraz misses a forehand return off a wide serve by Fritz, 15-0. The American looks to be in trouble as he scrambles over to his forehand wing, but recovers with a brilliant squash shot and wins the point, 30-0. Fritz can't handle a strong Alcaraz return, taking the Spaniard to 30-15. The Spaniard misses his next return, 40-15. Murmurs ring around Centre Court as Fritz double faults, the first of the match - 40-30. Alcaraz then goes over to umpire Marijana Veljovic - appearing to have an issue with his eye - the crowd applauds as he shakes it off and returns to the baseline. Fritz holds with an ace. A physio runs on to look at Alcaraz. 11th Jul 2025, 13:51 By Etienne Fermie Alcaraz 3-1 Fritz* Fritz quickly moves to 0-15, profiting on a soft second serve by unleashing two huge forehands, the second a winner. The American can't get Alcaraz's next 128mph delivery back, however, 15-15. Nor the 125mph serve after that - 30-15. Centre Court erupts in applause after a sensational backhand return winner by Fritz, 30-30. Alcaraz responds by unleashing a 135mph body serve to move to 40-30. The reigning champion holds with an ace up the T. 11th Jul 2025, 13:46 By Etienne Fermie Alcaraz* 2-1 Fritz Alcaraz sends a return off a second serve into the net, 15-0. The Spaniard then sends Fritz scurrying back with a sensational return, but the American does well to recover and win the point, 15-15. A brilliant Fritz forehand forces an error by Alcaraz, 40-0. Fritz holds to love with a 129mph ace out wide. 11th Jul 2025, 13:44 By Etienne Fermie Alcaraz 2-0 Fritz* A big first serve brings Alcaraz to 15-0. Fritz then can't get his next delivery back either, 30-0. Centre Court gasps in wonder as Alcaraz lands a huge 134mph ace down the T, 40-0. A Fritz return lands long, meaning that Alcaraz has held serve in little over a minute. 11th Jul 2025, 13:42 By Etienne Fermie Alcaraz* 1-0 Fritz Alcaraz has Centre Court gasping on the very first point, winning it with a delicate forehand drop shot, 0-15. Fritz lands his next first serve and his opponent drops a forehand long, 15-15. Titters go around Centre Court as a ballkid chases away a bird. Alcaraz then has Fritz scrambling with two huge forehands, eventually winning the point with a softer one, 15-30. Fritz nets a forehand off an Alcaraz return, presenting the Spaniard with two early break points. The American saves the first with ace out wide. But he takes the second after a backhand smacks off the net cord and luckily drops for a winner! Alcaraz raises his hand in apology, but has gotten off to a perfect start.
ABC News
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Warwick Capper banned from MCG and all AFL matches for alleged inappropriate behaviour
Former Sydney and Brisbane forward Warwick Capper has been banned from attending AFL matches after alleged inappropriate behaviour at last year's grand final. The AFL confirmed on Wednesday morning that Capper had been issued a "banning notice". The MCG has also been banned him from all events at the ground. Both bans are understood to be for five years. Capper's manager, Tony Marks, said the ex-football star had made a "light-hearted joke" to a female while attending the grand final. "No doubt there's a few inappropriate things said in the caricature that is Warwick Capper and playing the class clown, but five years from every AFL venue, including no cricket, concerts … that stinks," Marks told News Corp. "He did make a light-hearted joke to somebody in the room, but not with any ill will. He definitely didn't walk up and say it directly to her. "There's a generation of people who didn't grow up with Warwick but for 95 per cent of people in that room he was being the joking Warwick Capper, an entertainer. "He knows he needs to pull his socks up with some of his jokes, but under no circumstances would he want anyone to be offended. He was making a joke and it was overheard and offence was taken." Capper played 124 games for the Swans and Bears between 1983 and 1991, kicking a total of 388 goals. He was Sydney's leading goal kicker on four separate occasions and took the mark of the year in 1987. Since retiring, Capper has appeared on a number of television shows as a guest such as The AFL Footy Show, Celebrity Big Brother and The Celebrity Apprentice Australia. He has also been known to do celebrity guest appearances at various functions.
News.com.au
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- News.com.au
Warwick Capper banned from AFL venues over ‘vile behaviour'
Former Sydney Swans star Warwick Capper won't be seen at an AFL venue for some time following his 'vile behaviour' at last year's grand final at the MCG. Capper, who turned 62 earlier this month, was once a high flying forward in the AFL, but is more known these days for partying, outrageous stunts and issues with drugs and alcohol. FOX FOOTY, available on Kayo Sports, is the only place to watch every match of every round in the 2025 Toyota AFL Premiership Season LIVE in 4K, with no ad-breaks during play. New to Kayo? Get your first month for just $1. Limited-time offer. It has now emerged Capper has been banned from all AFL venues for a period of five years after catering staff made a number of complaints about his conduct during last year's decider between the Swans and Brisbane Lions, 7NEWS reports. Capper represented both clubs during his nine-year, 124-game career, leading the Swans' goalkicking four times and emerging as a star in the late 1980s, taking Mark of the Year in 1987. 7NEWS chief football reporter Mitch Cleary said Capper was removed from the ground during the Lions' 60-point victory on September 28 last year. 'Warwick Capper banned from all AFL venues for five years for vile behaviour during last year's grand final,' Cleary said. 'Catering staff reported that he was heavily intoxicated, used derogatory language and intimidated a female staff member. 'MCG employees told the AFL, Capper yelled 'Wazza's in the house' before he was kicked out of the corporate suite and evicted from the ground.' Capper has been banned from all AFL games for five years, along with any cricket or concert events at the MCG. Following his footy career, Capper tried his hand at a wide range of pursuits, including singing, acting and speaking appearances. Once famous for his blond hair and short playing shorts, Capper also detailed his drug use in his autobiography, Fool Forward. Earlier this month, the Herald Sun reported Capper was accused of exposing himself during a performance at a Melbourne sports club. He allegedly simulated sex acts, made references to drug use and claimed he had been with the wife of the event organiser the night before. 'Perhaps some of my behaviours on occasion can be inappropriate; I play too much into the 'Warwick Capper' persona to make people happy and have a laugh and I probably shouldn't,' Capper said in a statement to News Corp at the time. 'Although there were some tasteless jokes, under no circumstance did I expose myself on stage to the audience.' Capper has also spoken about his concerns with concussions from his playing career, an issue he was due to speak to the AFL about in the coming days. There were a number of comments on Capper's grand final behaviour on social media. 'Not the way you would like to be remembered,' was one comment on X. 'It only took 10 months!' said another. 'What a colossal f**kwit,' wrote a third. 'A man child,' added a fourth.
