What to do with muscle strain and ligament strain

Muscle strain and ligament strain are relatively common phenomena in life, so we should pay attention to how to effectively relieve and treat them. You can use ice compresses to relieve the swelling and pain. After the problem is slightly relieved, you can do some stretching appropriately.

1. Apply ice.

After a strain, the first step is to place an ice pack or a towel dipped in ice water around the muscle for 10 to 20 minutes. The ice compress here has two very important functions: one is to quickly reduce muscle tension and relieve pain; the other is to help identify the injury.

If it is a muscle strain, ice compress in the acute phase will greatly relieve the pain caused by the strain. On the contrary, if there is no obvious effect, it is necessary to consider that the muscle may be torn. Therefore, it is very important to apply ice compress as soon as possible after the injury.

2. Stretch appropriately.

When the symptoms are slightly relieved after ice application, you can try muscle stretching within the pain-free range, lasting 5-10 seconds and repeated 5-10 times. Note that you must be careful here and do not stretch too much. At the same time, we recommend not to take painkillers after injury, because pain is a very important signal of the human body, and painkillers may make us unable to observe the pain signal.

3. Treatment after the acute phase

After a muscle strain, if there is swelling in the injured area, it means that you may not be suitable for exercise anymore. You need to rest and continue to cool the injured area.

Step 1: First, stretch within the pain-free range. The key points are the same as in the previous paragraph. Afterwards, you can add some light aerobic exercise, such as jogging or cycling, but be careful not to cause pain and the duration should not exceed 20 minutes. Finally, apply ice for 20 minutes. Forget about explosive power training, as the muscle tension regulation is already in a disordered state and you have to wait until it returns to normal.

Step 2: Make corresponding plans for recovery training according to the severity of the injury, insist on stretching and aerobic exercise, and gradually increase the amount of training. Under the condition that the injured part is not affected, properly arranging aerobic exercise can have a good effect on accelerating the healing of muscles.

The causes of muscle strain have been explained in detail in the previous issue, so I will not repeat them here.