Muscle Injuries
Tears, strains, pulls, tweaks and everything else you’ve heard before…
Source: https://www.lecturio.com/concepts/skeletal-muscle-contraction/
Muscles are key to human movement, are many, and vary in size, shape, and action.
Many of you will have heard of the hamstrings, quads, rotator cuff, glutes etc.
However, these are not single muscles, instead they are groups of muscles which work together to achieve specific goals for us.
Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/327777679128010091/
Muscle injuries are very common, but the vast majority of muscle injuries are not severe, and can typically be resolved in a matter of days to weeks.
So you’ve a recent pain in a muscle that you’re worried about, what could be going on?
There are 3 overall types of muscle injury: Contusions, Spasms, and Strains
Contusions
Contusions are injuries caused by direct impact onto a muscle, think dead legs or dead arms.
They can be sore, can be accompanied by swelling and when severe, can take several weeks to resolve.
Key in managing a contusion is to avoid further direct impacts to it.
NO FOAM ROLLING, MASSAGE GUNS or MASSAGE THERAPY! These will slow down your healing times!
Source: https://www.healthline.com/health/what-is-a-contusion
Spasms
Typically occur because of fatigue, overuse, and can be very painful and are the uncordinated and unplanned contraction of muscles.
Movement and recovery are key to settling spasms or cramps.
Source: https://i.imgur.com/RjfYHJl.gifv
Muscle Strains
Strains (also commonly known as tears) are probably the most well known type of muscle injury.
The severity varies depending on the mechanism with which the muscle is injured.
Source: https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/48/18/1347
The Science:
The British Athletics Muscle Injury Classification System is the most up to date tool available to evaluate and classify muscle injuries.
It describes 5 muscle injury grades, and provides a structure to classify everything from muscle spasms where no physical damage has occurred, right up to complete or full thickness tears.
Grade 0:
These aren’t injuries in the sense that there is no muscle fibre damage, but are either 0a: acute focal muscle cramps or 0b: delayed onset muscle soreness due to either high intensity exercise and or poor recovery.
Both 0a and 0b injuries require rest and recovery, soft tissue therapies may be helpful to some and some more aggressive treatment techniques may offer benefit if spasm lingers for longer than a few days.
Grades 1-4: Are injuries where there is some muscle fibre damage.
The letter given (a, b, or c) denotes the location of the injury.
A: Myofascial (Muscle belly)
B: Musculotendinous (Junction between muscle belly and tendon)
C: Tendinous (Non-contractile tendon tear)
The number (1, 2, 3, or 4) denotes the degree of damage that has occured.
Grade 1: Are small tears which are smaller than 10% of muscle thickness and fibre disruption length <1cm.
Typically, are not found in the tendon (a and b only).
Grade 2: Are moderate tears which extend to 10-50% of the muscle thickness, and fibre disruption length <5cm.
Grade 3: Are significant tears extending to >50% of muscle thickness, and fibre disruption length >5cm .
Grade 4: Are complete thickness tears, also known as ruptures and are uncommon.
Source: https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/48/18/1347
How to tell if you have a muscle tear?
Generally muscle tears can be picked up by a combination of some key findings:
1) There will usually be a sudden onset of your symptoms
2) There will usually be some weakness or “unwillingness” to push with that muscles’ action.
3) There may be some pain on contracting the affected muscle
4) There may also be some stiffness in lengthening the affected muscle.
To differentiate between a cramp and a mild tear, there is usually a clearly specific spot of tenderness with a small tear, whereas pain associated with cramp will be harder to pinpoint.
However, with most things, each individual can vary in how muscle injuries present so if in doubt, contact your trused athletic therapist / physiotherapist.
