Newbies: Nutrition could also be the culprit for you, too, so look at your pre-race meal. Once you get a side stitch, treatment is simple. Stop running and take long, slow deep breaths.
This should relieve the spasm and off you go again. Prevention is really the key. One item of caution: The diaphragm has nerves that refer pain to the shoulder. One of the best ways to pre-stretch the area is to lift your arms over your head and lean to the left and right at the waist.
Do more lower-back and abdominal exercises; see " Achieve Washboard Abs " for more ideas. Having a strong core will help you prevent the side stitch. Send your fitness questions to stew stewsmith. Whether you're thinking of joining the military, looking for fitness and basic training tips, or keeping up with military life and benefits, Military.
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Some complete civilian or military education, play instruments Get the scoop on discounts, pay, benefits, and our latest award-winning content. Right in your inbox. View more newsletters on our Subscriptions page. Here is a workout I like to do to check progress, or lack thereof, in a variety of running styles and benchmark distances. It is possible to get through your training program with running only a few days a week, but your risk future injury.
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If you were the fitness king for a day and could create a fitness test for yourself to qualify for any job or goal, what A side stitch classically manifests as an aching, stabbing, or sharp stomach pain, just below your ribs.
A few survey-based studies on runners and other athletes who develop side stitches in an athletic event have established that eating a large meal or drinking concentrated, sugary fluids like fruit juice close to the time of the competition will increase your risk of developing a stitch. But interestingly, being older and training more often seem to confer a protective effect. Beginner runners are also more likely to be susceptible to them, so if you are a newer runner, consider the foods you are eating as a starting point.
Traditionally, it was though that ischemia, or a decrease in bloodflow, to the diaphragm the muscle which expands your lungs and allows you to breathe causes localized irritation and pain. This purported cause also explains why certain foods or fluids seem more prone to cause side stitches: more blood required by the stomach for digesting certain foods or liquids would pull away more blood from the diaphragm.
A study by two researchers at Avondale College in Australia measured the actual breathing patterns of athletes suffering from side stitches during exercise.
Twenty eight athletes were recruited, all of which had a history of developing side stitches during training. Several respiratory variables associated with lung function and breathing were measured, then the athletes completed a treadmill run.
Fourteen developed a side stitch, while the others were able to complete the test without pain. After the test, the athletes all had their lung function measured again, and the researchers compared the function of the pain-free athletes to that of the ones suffering from a side stitch. While the athletes with a side stitch showed a small decrease in lung power during exhalation, the authors concurred that the magnitude of this difference was not likely to affect performance.
The fact that they detected no difference in inhalation strength—which is primarily governed by the diaphragm—implies that poor blood flow to the diaphragm was not a major causal factor. If it were, the researchers would have expected to see some limitations in the strength or power of the blood-starved diaphragm.
As the theory goes, impact during activity pulls the organs in your abdomen downwards, tugging on the ligaments in the upper abdomen and eventually creating irritation.
This would explain why consuming a meal regardless of its contents too soon before running can bring on a side stitch, and it explains why side stitches are common in running and horse riding, but are rare in cycling.
For one, varying the concentration of sugars in fluids consumed immediately before or during exercise has a measurable effect on your risk of developing a side stitch. This was demonstrated in a study which used 40 athletes with a history of side stitches during exercise. On separate occasions, each subject was given a controlled amount of weakly-flavored water, a sports drink, fruit juice, or no fluids at all.
After ingesting the fluid, the subjects completed a treadmill run and reported any abdominal pain. The fruit juice, with its high concentration of sugar, was much more likely to cause a side stitch than any of the other conditions.
And the sports drink, which had a medium concentration of sugar, appeared to cause more severe side stitches than no fluids at all though less so than the fruit juice , though this finding just escaped statistical significance. Finally, a third line of reasoning connects side stitches with irritation of the spinal column. In a report, D. Morton and T. Aune authors of several of the papers cited here described how, in nine out of 18 runners seen at their clinic, the pain from a side stitch incurred during a workout could be readily reproduced by applying manual pressure to the vertebrae along the upper spine.
Crucially, this spinal theory also explains the sometimes-observed pain at the tip of the shoulder—both the nerve that runs to the diaphragm and the nerve that runs to the tip of the shoulder originate from the same vertebrae. Further, it also can explain why runners, horse riders, and swimmers experience high rates of side stitches, but cyclists do not.
Running and horse riding involve vertical jolting of the spine, while swimming involves rotational twisting, both of which could put stress on the upper spine. Why do pre-race meals and sugary fluids seem to bring on side stitches more often and more severely? Like many things in athletics, the roots of side stitches are likely more complex than one single factor.
If you find yourself mid r un struggling with yet another stitch, try this technique to stop your running stitch right away. As more research on side stitches is done, we should move closer to fully understanding how the diaphragm, the ligaments and membranes of the abdomen, and the spinal column all affect side stitches.
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