Why the right spot hurts so good
Can we talk about one of our favourite moments in a treatment? You find a spot, your client pauses, and then comes the wince, the exhale and, “Ohhhh. THAT’S it.” It hurts, but they’re hardly trying to escape your thumb. In fact, they’re usually quite clear that they’d like you to stay right there, thank you very much.
We’ve heard this more times than we can count in almost 30 years of treating, and our ears still perk up every time. That familiar “hurts so good” spot is exactly what we’re looking for. But why does pressure there feel so different from poking somewhere else?
Turns out, some researchers were curious about that too.
They compared a tender spot in the forearm with a non-tender spot just two centimeters away in 48 people. Each spot received thumb pressure for 12 seconds, adjusted until it felt moderately painful. Participants then rated the experience. Our favorite detail? Seventy-nine per cent couldn’t even tell which spot was which.
Both spots hurt about the same, roughly five out of ten. But pressure on the tender spot felt less unpleasant and more relieving, and 67% of participants preferred it. Imagine that. People actually preferred having their sore spot pressed.
The neuroscience nerds in us enjoyed that quite a bit.
We tend to talk about pain as though how much it hurts tells us everything we need to know. But “How much does this hurt?” and “How unpleasant is this?” are different questions. You’ve probably had clients tell you something hurts while practically directing your thumb back to it. They aren’t confused. Those two experiences can exist together.
The authors suggested that brain regions involved in reward and evaluating an experience might help explain the difference. That’s a possible explanation, but what caught our attention was the finding itself: similar pain intensity, different experience, just two centimeters apart.
For us, that fits with why we’re so particular about where we work. In RAPID, we’re looking for the spot that reproduces the client’s familiar complaint, the one that makes them say, “Yes, that’s MY pain.” Their feedback helps guide us, and then we reassess to see whether anything actually changed.
Because finding a sore spot is easy. Most of us could find several before breakfast. Finding a relevant spot, working there briefly and getting a useful change? That’s what we’re interested in.
There was another detail we liked. The tender spot wasn’t rated significantly more pleasant. It was less unpleasant and more relieving. Nobody was confusing it with a lovely spa treatment. It just felt like the right bloody spot.
That distinction is useful in the treatment room. A client saying “that hurts” doesn’t tell us everything, but neither does “that hurts so good.” We still need to ask, listen, work within their tolerance and check what happens afterwards. Can they move more comfortably?
Has their familiar pain changed? The response helps us decide what comes next.
So this week, pay attention to those “THAT’S it” moments. What did your client recognize, and what changed after you worked there? Before adding more pressure, more time or another dozen spots, check what your first bit of work accomplished.
Precision beats pressure. Sometimes the answer is getting a little more particular about where your thumb lands.
Hit reply and tell us your best “THAT’S the spot” story. We love hearing what happens in your treatment rooms.
Sherry & Rob
RAPID NeuroFascial Reset
References, for the curious:
- Lee, S., Moon, H., Ryu, Y., Lee, I.-S., Chae, Y. Sensory and emotional responses to deep pressure stimulation at myofascial trigger points: a pilot study. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 2023; 17:1197302. doi:10.3389/fnins.2023.1197302
