A LITTLE PAIN NEVER HURT ANYBODY:

You've just put in a great block of training. Now your knee hurts. Does that mean you're injured? Well... it's complicated, according to a new opinion piece in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Athletes are constantly dealing with pains and niggles, some that disappear and others that persist. Judging which ones to ignore and which ones to take seriously is a delicate art--and how we choose to label those pains, it turns out, can affect the outcome.

The new article is by Morten Høgh, a physiotherapist and pain scientist at Aalborg University in Denmark, along with colleagues from Denmark, Australia, and the United States. It argues that, in the context of sports medicine, pain and injury are two distinct entities and shouldn't be lumped together. When pain is inappropriately labeled as an injury, Høgh and his colleagues argue, it creates fear and anxiety and may even change how you move the affected part of the body, which can create further problems.

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