The usual cause of repetitive stress injury is repeating the same movement over and over. And another cause is improper use.

Repetitive stress injuries can affect muscles, tendons and nerves. And the areas frequently affected by stress that’s repetitious are your elbows, shoulders, knees and heels.

Typical symptoms caused by a repetitive stress injury are:

• pain
• fatigue
• myalgia
• stiffness
• soreness
• weakness
• paresthesia
• loss of strength & endurance
• sensation of popping or clicking

Sometimes, these symptoms may be felt elsewhere, i.e. numb hand caused by a repetitive stress injury in your elbow or shoulder.

There are numerous different types of repetitive stress injuries.  The most common types are:

• bursitis
• tendonitis
• shin splints
• epicondylitis
• stress fractures
• carpal tunnel syndrome
• Osgood-Schlatter disease
• patellor femoral syndrome

You could suffer from a type of repetitive stress injury while someone else who repeats the exact same motion doesn’t.

A repetitive stress injury often worsens because the muscles, joints and surrounding tissue aren’t given an opportunity to heal, thus becoming more irritated and inflamed. Yep, the only way these injuries heal is to stop repeating the activity which caused it. So give it a rest for a month or so.

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Tendons are dense fibrous cords attaching muscle to bone.  Tendinitis most often ignites in tendons that crossover a joint, such as the shoulder, elbow, wrist and heel areas.  But it can flare-up in any tendon.

Tendinitis causes you to experience your pain and tenderness symptoms around the outer portion of the irritated joint.  Your pain is aptly the consequence of small tendon tears or motion aggravated caused inflammation.

Determining whether your joint pain and tenderness symptoms are actually tendinitis or some other cause can be difficult.  Various tendon locations will exhibit specific types of tendinitis pain, for example:

• groin pang ~ adductor tendinitis
• shoulder ache ~ rotator cuff tendinitis
• painful just above your heel ~ Achilles tendinitis
• stab on the inner part of your elbow ~ golfer’s elbow
• soreness just below your kneecap ~ patellar tendinitis
• rotate or grip action pain in your upper outer side forearm ~ tennis elbow

Your occurrences of tendinitis may escalate as you age because of a diminished elasticity in your muscles and tendons.

Other issues associated with joint pain and tenderness of tendinitis include:

• sheath surrounding tendons subject to wear & tear of aging
• severe tendinitis leads to its rupture ~ surgical repair may be necessary
• tendinitis can also be involved with inflammatory diseases ~ rheumatoid arthritis
• improper sports and fitness technique overloads tendons, contributing to tendinitis
• tendon lock, aka trigger finger ~ sheath of tissue surrounding tendon scars and narrows

Most often tendinitis does not require a trip to your doc. At home treatment for this type of joint pain, tenderness and inflammation involve rest, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and pain relievers.

If the tendinitis is such that it interferes with your daily life, paying a visit to your health care provider may yield you a corticosteroid injection treatment.  Injections of cortisone reduce inflammation and help ease unmanageable pain.

Sometimes tendinitis pain and tenderness hangs around for months.  If you continue to use your painful joint in the repetitive manner that caused your tendinitis, then expect slower healing.  Or possibly a physical structural change to this tendon, ending up with a weaker one.

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• Rest ~ immobilize and keep weight bearing to injured area at a minimum
• Ice ~ 20 minutes, four to eight times a day.
• Compression ~ even pressure on injured area to minimize swelling.
• Elevation ~ injured area at a level above your heart to minimize swelling.

After the first 48 hours, heat application may offer additional relief.

Protect the area from further injury by using a brace or support during rehabilitation wherever possible.

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Movement, in whatever way, has proven to be extremely valuable to your overall health condition. Get going, but keep the following in your mind.

The short list of usual causes of the sport type injury are:

• accidents
• poor training practices
• failing to adequately “warm up”
• use of improper gear/equipment
• lack of condition for the particular sport

The most common sports injuries are:

• fractures
• dislocations
• knee injuries
• swollen muscles
• achilles tendon injuries
• sprains, strains and pulls
• pain along the shin bone

The two types of sports injuries are acute and chronic. Acute injuries occur suddenly during play or exercise. How you know you’ve experience an acute injury is by experiencing:

• swelling
• sudden & severe pain
• painful weight bearing
• very tender to the touch
• restrictive joint movement
• weakness and/or the injury is visibly obvious

In contrast, how chronic injuries tend to happen is after repetitive sports play or exercise for a prolonged time period, and then you experience pain with continuation of the sport play or exercise, or you experience a dull ache/swelling after you stop.

What you should do when you first feel pain is to stop. Next, follow the RICE method to:

• relieve pain
• speed healing
• reduce swelling

(Unless, of course, you have a visibly obvious injury that is in need immediate medical repair.)

Here are the four steps to follow right after injury occurs and continue for at least the next 48 hours:

• Rest ~ immobilize and keep weight bearing to injured area at a minimum
• Ice ~ 20 minutes, four to eight times a day
• Compression ~ even pressure on injured area to minimize swelling
• Elevation ~ injured area at a level above your heart to minimize swelling

Protect the area from further injury by using a brace or support during rehabilitation wherever possible.

You may need medical attention if you have:

• swelling
• numbness
• severe pain
• the area feels abnormally unstable

If in doubt, have it checked out!

Anti-inflammatory drugs, such as aspirin, ibuprofen, ketoprofen, or naproxen sodium, are good compliments to the RICE swelling and pain reduction method.

And the final step to sports injury “what to do” program is rehabilitation. Moving the injured area helps it to heal, so the sooner the better. What this means is to gently start moving it through a range of motions, next is stretching, and finally add weight.

The time to start playing again is when you can stretch the injured area without pain, swelling, or stiffness.

Never lose sight of the fact that all injuries need time to heal. Rest helps that process, so keep a proper balance between rest and rehabilitation.

Other common therapies that help with the healing process include:

• massage
• sound waves (ultrasound)
• mild electrical currents (electrostimulation)
• heat packs or heating pads (thermotherapy)

An MP3 is a great source of mental entertainment if what you do for sport/exercise is a solo type activity.

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The initial chemical team is located in on site cells, which trigger a process called inflammation. Blood vessels surrounding the injury site open up for a blood flow increase. This widens the doors for the necessary incoming nutrients army.

Within a matter of hours, white blood cells (leukocytes) arrive via the bloodstream to begin their process of tearing down and removing damaged tissue. This allows for other cells to start their specialized job of developing scar tissue.

The amount of scarring depends on the nature of the injury as evidenced by the amount of swelling, inflammation, or bleeding at the injury location. Amazingly, over the course of the next few weeks, your sprain, strain or tear will regain a great deal of strength. All the while scar tissue continues to form.

Figure about a month post sprain, strain or tear for your injury protective scar tissue start to shrink, bringing damaged, torn, or separated tissues back together.

Precautions should be taken, because some of those “pesky” sports injuries may take a couple months or more before healing is complete. Re-injury of sprains, strains or tears are the result of previously injured area feeling good, yet not quite back to 100%.

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When you experience pain, or injure yourself, stop. Do not try to “work through” the pain because you can make your injury worse. Instead, stop exercising for a few days and follow the routine described below.

The standard first-aid routine for most strains, sprains, and pulls caused by overuse during exercise is rest, ice, compression and elevation.

• Rest: Stop exercising immediately. Don’t put any weight on the affected area for 24 hours.
• Ice: Apply an ice pack to the affected area to reduce swelling. Repeat ice for 20 minutes every hour during the first 24 to 48 hours while awake.
• Compression: Wrap an elastic bandage around the area, being careful not to wrap it so tightly as to interfere with blood flow. Compression also helps control swelling.
• Elevation: Raise the affected joint or limb higher than your heart so that gravity can help prevent blood and other body fluids from collecting at the injury site.

You may want take aspirin or ibuprofen for your pain and help in reducing inflammation. Begin gently stretching the injured area after a couple of days. Be careful not to stretch to the point which it becomes painful, or you could damage the muscle again.

Stop exercising immediately and call 911 if you have any symptoms of a heart attack such as the following:

• A feeling of pressure or fullness, a squeezing sensation or crushing pain in the center of the chest that lasts more than just a few minutes, and is not relieved by rest
• Chest pain that spreads to the shoulders, neck, jaw or arms
• Chest discomfort accompanied by light-headedness, fainting, sweating, nausea or vomiting, cold or clammy skin, or shortness of breath

If you think your injury is serious, or it does not heal after several days with use of the above first-aide, might want to consider having it checked out by your doctor.

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However, endorphins released immediately following your injury provides pain relief to allow for escape. Natural pain killers for survival.

Later, when survival is no longer at issue, your endorphin level decreases. This is also an important survival mechanism. Experiencing pain helps prevents you from causing further injury.

Movement stimulates production of endorphinse which promotes pain relief and an overall feeling of wellbeing. Although you may be experiencing pain it’s crucial to be as physically active as possible.

Also, a good laugh releases endorphines.

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