Tightness? Cramping? Oh my!
Stiffness? Cramping? Are those signs of an impending injury?
In British slang, a “niggle” is a trifling complaint, dispute, or criticism, but another definition is a slight, but persistent annoyance, discomfort, or anxiety. A group of Australian PhDs in biomedical sciences and exercise physiology were curious if “niggles” matter in sport in regards to injury. More specifically, do these annoying discomforts result in more severe injuries in footballers. Yes, footballers, not climbers. Just follow…
The study included 218 semi-professional football players from Australia. They tracked non-time loss injuries(non-TL), aka “niggles,” and time loss(TL) injuries over an entire 35-week season. Non-time loss would be considered an injury of minimal or moderate severity that does not impact the players ability to participate in sport. The investigators found that a player’s risk of a time loss/severe injury was 3-6x higher if they had a non-time loss injury the previous week. So, a player that continues to play through a minor injury is at a high risk for a more severe injury. This may seem intuitive, but how many of you continue to run, climb, hike, ski, and just adventure with those minor discomforts?
I can imagine “niggles” include many things. Muscle cramps and spasms occur when your muscle involuntarily and forcibly contracts and cannot relax. They are quite common and can be due to muscle fatigue, dehydration, depletion of electrolytes, and stress. Other less common causes can include vitamin deficiencies and dysfunctions of the nervous system. Trigger points are discrete, focal, highly irritable bands within a muscle. These can refer to different areas of the body when irritated and can develop due to chronic microtrauma(poor posture or mechanics) or acute trauma. Whether it is a cramp, spasm, or trigger point, it is likely you are doing something to your muscle that it does not appreciate. It responds by shortening, going to it’s safe place. For example, during an intramural softball game, my friend showed up late and decided a triple sounded better than a double. He already had some hamstring tightness and of course, did not warm up. Bam, pulled hammy. He took his hamstring somewhere it did not want to go, a sprint, and it responded by tightening up to prevent him from repeating the motion.
Tissue damage and pain DO NOT correlate. I’ve seen some MRIs that leave me scratching my head like…”hmmm this does not look bad but this person reports 10/10 pain.” I’ve also had a physician say, “it looks like a bomb went off in this guy’s back” only to see the patient return to playing basketball pain free in 6 weeks with that “bomb” spine. The investigators hit on this when they state “…in overuse injuries, tissue failure may already be present before the development of pain and performance deficits, with dysfunction in a local area potentially impacting on pathology in neighboring areas.” Ah ha…athletes are fantastic at developing compensatory patterns to move around discomfort.
Am I saying stop every time you feel tightness? NO! Is there a reason? Are you dehydrated? Are you used to climbing 1-2 times per week and now you’re pulling a double in Little? Many times, there is a rational explanation, but continuing to push through it can make these “niggles” more than just a nuisance. Always check in with your body. Is that elbow bothering you during typing or normal everyday activities? Not a good sign.
That is why we offer injury screens! Many times I advise just a few days off to calm things down. Some times it is just a little too much and rest will do the job. Once that problem feeds into other problems, that is when things are not so simple.
Whalan, Matthew & Lovell, Ric & Sampson, John. (2019). Do Niggles Matter? -Increased injury risk following physical complaints in football (soccer). Science and Medicine in Football. 4. 10.1080/24733938.2019.1705996.