Self Treatment of a Muscle Spasm
At some point or another everyone gets a muscle spasm. Muscle spasms can be caused by a few things such as electrolyte imbalances, trauma to the body, and/or over use or fatigue to the body.
Why Do We Get a Muscle Spasm?
Muscle spasms are involuntary contractions of the muscle itself and they tend to to be a type of protective mechanism for the body that is initiated by the physiology of the body and nervous system. This is a way for the body to protect the joint and surrounding areas. For example, in the mid back you may get a muscle spasm if your turn the wrong way. A spasm causes pain which prevents you from going any further so that you don’t risk further injury to that area. Another example is a runner or the calf muscle that spasms due to fatigue.
How to relieve it?
Relief of the muscle spasms as always depends on the cause of it in the first place. If it is pain based, you are going to need to do a few things.
- Time – after an injury and to let the body recover from the injury, you definitely need to give it just that.
- Stretching may not help much – If you stretch at all, which I don’t recommend much make sure it is gentle. Keep in mind I said GENTLE! Less is truly more and if you do too much thinking you can trick the body, you can increase the pain and/or damage.
- Movement – Rather than stretching or even over stretching just start to gently move the body within a comfortable range of motion!
- Heat – this modality tends to help bring blood flow and sooth the muscle.
- Mild Contraction- Give the body some gentle contraction
- Light stroking – instead of deep foam rolling or deep tissue, start working the muscle with light touch and moving around the area.
- Water and electrolytes- simple as that make sure you get some!