2 ms·

sorry, didn't mean to say you implied. just reiterating something. Sitting all day is just an aggravating cause, not the underlying cause. A muscle gets stif

sorry, didn't mean to say you implied. just reiterating something. Sitting all day is just an aggravating cause, not the underlying cause. A muscle gets stiff under a light load only when circulation is impaired. A muscle with good circulation will not get stiff. So it isn't that we sit for long periods. Its that we haven't fully exercised our full range of motion on a regular basis. We haven't kept the normal deposition of collagen from essentially gluing our muscle sheaths into something stiff enough to impair blood flow to the muscles inside them. That's my theory anyway. And part of my understanding is that this situation is totally reversible.

AgentConundrum 16y ago
Reversibility is dependent on the type and extent of the damage. If the damage is isolated to the muscle, then it probably is reversible to a certain extent. First, the muscles in spasm (constant state of tension) need to be massaged back to pliability, then you need to focus on stretching the muscles so they can better manage repetitive stress, and once the muscle is relatively healthy again you can begin strengthening it to withstand added tension and pressure and to heal itself better. As programmers, we're constantly abusing our arm muscles, and they will wear down over time. The trick is to minimize the abuse, and maximize your ability to regenerate, and hopefully you can get to a state where you heal more at night than you damage in the day. Now, prolonged stress and inflammation (and certain physical abnormalities) can cause damage to the nerves themselves and nerves suck at healing. If you start having problems with sensation (feeling cold or numb), that's the result of nerves under attack. Prolonged attack equals irreversible damage. As far as your notation about collagen gluing muscles, that sounds about right to me, and is sort of part of what I was saying earlier. Also, collagen is largely made up of water, and this is why it is so critical to keep yourself hydrated. Also, muscles locked in static positions (I assume as a result of spasm) can begin to act as a single unit rather than individual muscles. When this happens, your body can actually try to sort of "heal them together" and the muscles can literally begin to bind to each other. Massage, particularly deep tissue massage, can help to break these bands apart so your muscles become independent again. That's my understanding, anyway. I'm definitely no expert in this, and my knowledge largely comes from online research, and the book "It's Not Carpal Tunnel."

AgentConundrum 16y ago

Reversibility is dependent on the type and extent of the damage. If the damage is isolated to the muscle, then it probably is reversible to a certain extent. First, the muscles in spasm (constant state of tension) need to be massaged back to pliability, then you need to focus on stretching the muscles so they can better manage repetitive stress, and once the muscle is relatively healthy again you can begin strengthening it to withstand added tension and pressure and to heal itself better. As programmers, we're constantly abusing our arm muscles, and they will wear down over time. The trick is to minimize the abuse, and maximize your ability to regenerate, and hopefully you can get to a state where you heal more at night than you damage in the day. Now, prolonged stress and inflammation (and certain physical abnormalities) can cause damage to the nerves themselves and nerves suck at healing. If you start having problems with sensation (feeling cold or numb), that's the result of nerves under attack. Prolonged attack equals irreversible damage. As far as your notation about collagen gluing muscles, that sounds about right to me, and is sort of part of what I was saying earlier. Also, collagen is largely made up of water, and this is why it is so critical to keep yourself hydrated. Also, muscles locked in static positions (I assume as a result of spasm) can begin to act as a single unit rather than individual muscles. When this happens, your body can actually try to sort of "heal them together" and the muscles can literally begin to bind to each other. Massage, particularly deep tissue massage, can help to break these bands apart so your muscles become independent again. That's my understanding, anyway. I'm definitely no expert in this, and my knowledge largely comes from online research, and the book "It's Not Carpal Tunnel."