Remote Ischaemic Preconditioning Increase Tolerance to Experimentally Induced Cold Pain.

We found that one, two or three cycles of ischaemic preconditioning improved cold pain tolerance by 30% in compared to a sham protocol, but there was no clear effect of IPC on pain threshold or pain intensity.The pain reported during IPC decreased from cycle one to cycle three in the three cycle condition, suggesting a potential conditioned pain modulation effect.An increase in pain tolerance may explain why IPC can improve exercise performance and IPC itself could be used as a tool to improve tolerance to pain.