Physical exertion in bodybuilding can cause not only muscle pain - crepatura - but also joint pain. After strength training, the joint or joints themselves may ache. But often athletes have pain not in the joints themselves, but in the structures of the periarticular apparatus: ligaments, tendons, sheaths, fascia and aponeuroses. What are the causes of such pains, are their consequences dangerous, can they be avoided and what to do when they occur?
Joint pain after a workout: why
Joints and/or their periarticular apparatuses ache after strength training due to:
failure to perform a general warm-up; ignoring warm-up sets; improper exercise technique; an improper schedule of increasing working weights; refusal of special accessories - bandages, bandages, belts, straps, straps; uncomfortable and/or inappropriate athletic shoes; too many reps and sets; insufficient recovery time between sets; too long of a workout; of unfulfilled hiccups.
The degradation of joint surfaces and the occurrence of inflammatory processes in the periarticular apparatuses are also caused by an incorrect training plan - strength training more than 3 times a week, heavy loads two days in a row, no days off from any type of training and heavy physical activity. Joints are also negatively affected by frequent injuries, their under-treatment, improper and/or short rehabilitation.
The synovial joints of a person hurt for real. There is no synovial fluid, but there are nerve endings in the cartilage, capsule and synovial sheath. The inner layer of the joint bag (capsule) is most strongly innervated.
For beginners working on power machines and with free weights, it should be noted that bodybuilders have more than one Achilles' heel. Those who build their figure should take care of knees, wrists, elbows and shoulders. All these large joints are at risk of injury and pathologies.
Main signs and symptoms
If all of the above reasons do not apply to you, you should not have joint pain after exercise. Pain after exercise, but which goes away at rest, should make you think about what you are doing wrong and immediately start preventing osteoarthritis. The destruction of smooth hyaline cartilage lining the joint surfaces is an irreversible process. It must be handled delicately.
You should talk to an instructor (trainer), reduce your strength training, and be sure to see an orthopedic doctor if any of the following signs are present:
morning stiffness of the joint lasting 15 to 30 minutes; starting joint pain and stiffness at the beginning of movement after rest; painful joint syndrome after training does not go away for a long time and requires taking a painkiller; when the weather changes, there are medium-intensity aching pains; blocky (jamming) sharp pains, crunching, calf cramps are periodically bothering; swelling, increased temperature and redness of the skin over the joint.
It is not worth ignoring such symptoms. Mechanical progressive destruction of the hyaline layer of synovial joints - osteoarthritis, requires constant treatment, and aggravation and acceleration of the processes of hyaline cartilage degradation leads to disability and requires expensive prosthetics of the joint.
Osteoarthritis is one of the incurable progressive diseases due to the very low regeneration rate of hyaline cartilage. Scientists do not yet know how to accelerate the maturation of the cells that make it up - chondroblasts and chondrocytes. Therefore, thinning and destruction are not compensated by regeneration in time.
By the way, if you have pain in the shoulder joints, shoulder blades and clavicles, perhaps the cause is not in the joints, but in the muscle fascia. Myofascial pain syndrome is often caused by overload of the sternoclavicular-papillary, trapezius, trapezius, scapula, podostomy and rhomboid muscles.
Sports dangerous for joints
All freestyle skiing and contact sports lead the way in joint injury statistics. Hockey, soccer, handball, basketball. Volleyball players get injuries from ball contact and from falls. This also includes the familiar pathology of "tennis elbow". In fact, it is not a damage to the elbow joint, but lateral epicondylitis - inflammation of the tendons attaching the forearm extensor muscles to the lateral epicondyle of the humerus.
Weightlifters, powerlifters, kettlebell lifters and bodybuilders occupy the second position in the statistics of dangerous sports for joints. But the main cause of their joint problems is not injuries, but overloading the joints with heavy weights.
The third place is occupied by people engaged in running. "Runner's knee" - fatigue injury from frequent high impact loads on the joint, is recorded by 28% of both professional athletes and people engaged in long-distance running for tone.
The remaining places on the "flower ceremony" of sports dangerous for joints went to shooting, alpine skiing and snowboarding, and cycling. Shooters suffer damage to joints in one or both hands. Skating and rifle behind the back cause spinal problems, and shooting, both standing and lying down leads to joint problems and neuritis of the wrists, elbows and shoulders. Alpine skiers and snowboarders treat their knees. Occupational diseases of cyclists are knee osteoarthritis, ulnar neuritis, and crepitating tendovaginitis of the Achilles tendon.
Based on the above, bodybuilders and those who do cardio exercises to maintain tone are recommended low-trauma Nordic walking, work on a rowing machine, swimming.
How to avoid joint pain during and after workouts
In order to keep your joints pain-free during and after training, you should follow these rules and general recommendations:
learn the correct exercise technique and do not make any mistakes while performing the exercises; make sure you warm up before your workout; don't save time by ignoring the preliminary warm-up sets with a small number of repetitions and 30-50% of the working weight; follow the norm of gradually increasing the working weights; if you have problems with ligaments and/or joints, make your workout more gentle on them; do not impulsively work with weights that are too heavy; do not perform strength training exercises "on a dare"; always take a breather.
In case of injury, always coordinate treatment with a doctor. Do not load the injured joint and its periarticular apparatus until full functional recovery.
How to properly "warm up" your joints before working out
The joint warm-up does not take much time. We suggest that before you do a set of general warm-up exercises, you do the joint warm-up from the pre-training warm-up of Wushu fighters:
- 1. Ankle joints. Standing on one leg, make circular movements, first to the outside and then to the inside, in the ankle joint of the free leg. Repeat 8 times in a row in each direction, and then do the exercise for the other leg.
- 2. Knee joints. Starting position: feet shoulder-width apart, palms resting on slightly bent knees. First you should make 8 circular movements in the knee joints moving them simultaneously in a circle to the outside, and then 8 times - to the inside.
- 3. Hip joints and lumbar spine. Starting position: feet slightly wider than shoulder width, palms on the waist. Make 8 clockwise circular movements of the pelvis, while the shoulders do not remain stationary, but move in a counterclockwise direction, but the neck remains always perpendicular to the floor. Repeat the movements 8 times counterclockwise.
- 4. Shoulder joints. Starting position: basic stance, feet shoulder-width apart. Perform 8 circular shoulder movements to the back and then 8 repetitions to the front. Elbows can be slightly bent during the movements.
- 5. Elbow joints. Starting position: basic stance, arms out to the sides. Simultaneous circular movements in the elbow joints. On the right, 8 times describe circles with the hands to the outside, while the humerus bones remain immobile. Then 8 movements are made to the inside.
- 6. Wrist joints (wrists). Starting position: basic stance, arms forward, hands clenched into fists, thumbs outside. Keeping the shoulders and forearms immobile, perform 8 circular movements with the fists to the outside and then 8 times to the inside.
- 7. Cervical spine. Starting position: basic stand. Eyes can be closed or kept open. Circular movements clockwise and counterclockwise: 8 times each.
Attention. During the joint warm-up exercises, the amplitude of movement in the joints should be increased gradually, so that each next described circle is larger than the previous one.
After the joint warm-up, which will take 2 minutes, take about 5-6 minutes to warm up the large muscle groups. After that, the cardiovascular system should be prepared for the upcoming strength loads. This should be done for 5-7 minutes. It will take 20 minutes for the entire warm-up plus recovery of breathing after the cardio warm-up.
Photo: taken from the internet