Treatment For Muscle Pain And Tightness Caused By Exercise
Introduction
Your joint flexibility is a vital element of physical fitness that affect muscular damage risk and exercise performances. Muscle injury caused by exercise is affected by the training intensity and duration, muscle length, and muscle groups involved in the workout.
If you have muscle cramping during exercise is called Exercise-Associated muscle cramps (EAMC). You can define EAMC as a syndrome of spontaneous aching skeletal muscle spasms that happens during or instantly after training.
When you have Muscle soreness and tightness hours or a few days after exercise is known as delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). Individuals who engage in strenuous and unpracticed exercise and physical activity are prone to DOMS. Localized pain and soreness are DOMS characteristics, and in categorization, it is a grade 1 muscle strain injury.
You can experience muscle pain and tightness at its peaks between 24 to 72 hours after exercise but eventually vanishes after five to seven days. DOMS can adversely affect your muscular performance, both from the voluntary effort reduction and from the intrinsic capacity loss of the muscles to produce force. This reduction in performance is momentary, and there are no permanent impairments.
UNDERSTANDING FACTORS THAT CAUSE EAMC AND DOMS
The risk factors of EAMC are:
Increased exercise intensity or duration,
Muscle fatigue,
Muscle contraction in a shortened position, and
Tissue damage.
Older age,
A more extended history of running,
Larger body mass index,
Briefer stretching time,
Irregular stretching routines, and
A family history of cramping.
Medical causative factors of EAMC include chronic diseases such as the cardiovascular, respiratory, gastrointestinal, and nervous system, kidney, bladder, hematological conditions, cancer, allergies, and past medical history of Exercise-Associated muscle cramps.
Neuromuscular etiology theory; is the most acceptable EAMC causative theory.
The neuromuscular theory suggests that muscle weakness caused by intense training disturbs the ordinary function of peripheral muscle receptors. The disruption causes growth in excitatory afferent action within the muscles spindle and afferent activity reduction in the inhibitory Golgi tendon.
The imbalance leads to a boost in alpha motor neuron release to the muscle fibers hence the production of localized muscle pain, especially with muscle contraction in a shortened position.
Higher exercise intensity and Eccentric contractions are the main risk factors for delayed onset muscle soreness.
DOMS develops because the higher intensity of the workout is associated with eccentric contraction. For example, the heavier the weight generates prolonged muscle lengthening, the more likely you will experience Eccentric contraction (lengthening muscle) causes DOMS.
Eccentric contractions recruit fewer motor units. Thus the force generated is distributed over a smaller cross-sectional area of the muscle. This increased tension per unit area causes significant injury to the tissue.
CAN EAMC AND DOMS BE EFFECTIVELY TREATED?
There are effective physical treatments for Exercise-Associated muscle cramps and delayed onset of muscle soreness. These treatments are:
Sport massage
Cupping therapy
Manual therapy
Sports massage; Sports kneading is omnipresent in tip-top sport and progressively common at age-group and unprofessional levels. The benefits of sports massage are recovery enhancement, performance, and injury prevention. The mechanical pressure massage seems to alter neural excitability, and these neural modifications may reduce the possibility of cramping.
A tapotement massage of 30 seconds can reduce spinal reflex excitability. Hence, causing significant reductions in muscle pain and stiffness. Nelson, Nicole, Churilla, & James (2016).
Sports massage therapy is a means of relieving muscle soreness associated with Eccentric activity. Significant muscle pain reduction occurs within 24 to 48 hours when you receive massage therapy within 2 hours after an Eccentric workout.
At least 10 minutes of massage consisting of effleurage and petrissage strokes gives a significant outcome. Sports massage therapists utilize some techniques such as effleurage, petrissage, friction, and vibration. Moraska (2005).
Cupping therapy; is the use of vacuum suction in a “cup” to produce negative pressure. Which potentially will boost blood flow and enable the lymphatic system to remove toxins from the blood. The vacuum creation requires a hand pump, suction bulb, or flame to remove the oxygen from the cup. There are two different types of cupping.
Stationary or Static cupping; Cups remain static on your skin. When left on the skin, the usual therapy time ranges from 5 to 20 minutes, determined by the severity. Static cupping therapy can significantly decrease symptoms of chronic muscle pain and stiffness.
Cupping massage or sliding cupping; With the help of a lubricant, the therapist moves the cup around your skin. Sliding, or massage, cupping is the act of sliding vacuum suction cups along the skin with a lubricant(oil) to facilitate increased blood flow. It tends to improve the treatment area compared to stationary cupping. The increased blood circulation improves the elimination of blood waste and toxins.
This treatment is effective when applied every three to five days a week.
Manual therapy; The two other types of manual therapy that can effectively treat muscle pain are stretching and exercise therapy.
Stretching; decreases the stiffness of skeletal muscle. Passive stretching raises the pressure in muscles, thereby improving the Golgi tendon organ’s inhibitory input to the alpha motor neuron. It reduces the activity of alpha motor neurons, minimizing the risk of having EAMC. Qiu & Kang (2017).
Passive stretching completed before eccentric training reduces the inflammatory reaction.
Exercise; exercise intervention is one of the most effective strategies to relieve muscle pain. The therapist prescribes light exercise in the presence of a muscle cramp. Light exercise improves blood flow and removes toxic substances. It also boosted endorphin release, thereby causing an analgesic effect.
HOW CAN YOU PREVENT MUSCULAR PAIN AND TIGHTNESS CAUSED BY EXERCISE?
Start an adapted workout by gradually building neuromuscular endurance
Decrease training intensity, especially when there is an exercise inducing muscle damage.
Conduct a warm-up before the training.
Do good/moderate stretching before exercising.
Start slowly exercising with a lower speed and a well-controlled effort. Observe pause/rest during exercise.
Takeaway
Muscular pain and tightness caused by exercise could either be Exercise-Associated muscle cramps (EAMC) or delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). All you need to do is to speak to your trainer about your symptoms, so you can receive the best therapy and return to your training as soon as possible.
References
Davis, Holly Louisa; Alabed, Samer; Chico, Timothy James Ainsley (2020). Effect of sports massage on performance and recovery: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine, 6(1), e000614–. doi:10.1136/bmjsem-2019-000614
Edouard, P. (2014). Exercise associated muscle cramps: Discussion on causes, prevention and treatment. Science & sports, 29(6), 299-305.
Howatson, G., & Van Someren, K. A. (2008). The prevention and treatment of exercise-induced muscle damage. Sports medicine, 38(6), 483-503.
Moraska, A. (2005). Sports massage. A comprehensive review. J Sports Med Phys Fitness, 45(3), 370-380.
Mueller, C.(2018). The effects of massage therapy on delayed onset muscle soreness. Dissertations and Theses @ UNI. 671.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/etd/671.
Nelson, N, L., & Churilla, J, R. (2016). A narrative review of exercise-associated muscle cramps: Factors that contribute to neuromuscular fatigue and management implications. Muscle & Nerve, 54(2), 177–185. doi:10.1002/mus.25176.
