Muscle contracture is a fairly common injury caused by the muscle contraction involuntarily and continued to make an effort. When this happens, the power in question becomes tense instead of naturally contracting and stretching, and it tends to swell or stiffen, causing pain.
Muscle contractures occur not only among athletes but also among people, relatively sedentary, with stressful situations, or used to reiterate lousy posture. Despite not being severe injuries, they are annoying. At FastlyHeal, we teach you the types, causes, and treatment of muscle contracture.
Table of Contents
Types of muscle contractures
Depending on the moment in which they appear and the reason, muscle contractures can be divided into two different types:
- During exertion: when we do any physical exercise, our body metabolizes active substances to carry out the movement. At that time, these substances are transformed into waste. With heavy exertion or sudden activity, metabolic waste accumulates in the muscle fiber, causing inflammation and pain. This often occurs due to a lack of warm-up before exercise.
- After exertion: this type of contraction appears when an intense exercise has been carried out in which the muscle has been overworked. Due to accumulated fatigue, it cannot return to its resting state, causing the injury.
Causes of muscle contracture
In most cases, contractures appear when performing an activity or effort inappropriately. Executing a lousy gesture and maintaining it over time or taking excessive weight can overload an area and cause contracture. Despite being reasonably joint muscle damage, some factors make it more frequent.
Often, the lack of physical activity and muscle tone makes it more tiring to assume a great effort to facilitate the overload of the muscle and, therefore, the contracture. Similarly, age also influences the lack of elasticity in the muscles; For this reason, the muscles can be injured more quickly in older people. Of course, it should be added that extraordinary stress situations also contribute to involuntary tension in our muscular structure and predispose us to these injuries.
Treatment of muscle contracture
Before telling how to treat it, it is essential to talk about preventing it. To avoid a muscle injury, we recommend that you ensure correct posture when performing daily activities, warm up well before exercising, avoid gestures or repetitive movements, and do physical activity progressively, without forcing yourself excessively.
Still, if we’ve already been injured, it’s best to follow these simple guidelines:
- The rest is undoubtedly the first step. After suffering a contracture, we must stay away from exercise or avoid the gesture that caused it so that the muscle in question can rest.
- The most effective method of combating these injuries is massage. A correct manual therapy by a professional will cause an increase in blood flow, facilitate the recovery of mobility and help us relieve pain.
- Often, applying heat to the injured area can contribute to blood cleansing, providing a relaxing effect and calming pain.
- As for drugs, muscle relaxants and anti-inflammatories can help relax the muscles by reducing contraction, but a doctor should always prescribe them.
- We also recommend stimulating blood circulation through water baths. Gentle stretching underwater can help with treatment.
As always, a specialist will be your best ally. Seeing a physical therapist is the best decision to ensure we treat the injury as correctly as possible.
This article is merely informative, at FastlyHeal .com we do not have the power to prescribe medical treatments or make any type of diagnosis. We invite you to see a doctor in the case of presenting any type of condition or discomfort.
If you want to read more articles similar to Muscle contracture: types, causes and treatment , we recommend that you enter our category of Bones, joints and muscles .
I am a Surgeon with a diploma in comprehensive ultrasound and surgical care residency, an area I am specializing in. During the exercise of my profession, I have realized the need for patients to know the diseases they suffer, and I can tell you that a large part of their complications is due to a lack of information. Being a health web writer allows me to transmit my experience, without borders, to all those readers eager for knowledge, educate them in the prevention of diseases and promote a healthy lifestyle.