#264 – The Pain Puzzle: Exploring the Frontier of Pain Neuroscience with Coach Jayson Ball

Longtime strength coach and now PhD Neuroscience student Jayson Ball joins the show today to talk about his work in the world of pain neuroscience. Pain is a perplexing thing. While many people understand it as a strictly mechanical phenomenon (you slam your fingers in a door and say “ouch!”), pain also has a complex emotional and neurological component that cannot be ignored.

A massive pain management industry, including opiate and opioid drugs, has grown to meet the demand of pain sufferers, but with little to show for making long-term impact on pain symptoms. So it’s an important question. What is the nature of pain and what can we do to manage and treat pain symptoms?

Clearly, exercise — and strength training in particular — is the best drug we have today. But neuroscientists are close to running human trials which could help deal with the unforeseen consequences of the pain management industry, such as the current opioid epidemic.

Coach Jayson Ball works at the University of Colorado in Boulder. He is also a staff coach at Barbell Logic.