Girls have lower abdominal pain when running

Running is a form of exercise suitable for men, women, young and old, and you don’t need to choose a specific place to run. You can run as long as you want. Running can effectively exercise human muscles and achieve a detoxification effect, but many people will experience physical discomfort during running. Especially girls cannot run during menstruation. Why do some girls experience lower abdominal pain while running?

Why do girls have lower abdominal pain when running?

1. Insufficient preparation

When you start exercising, you do too much exercise. You increase the intensity of the exercise because the functions of your internal organs have not yet reached the proper level. Especially when your myocardial strength is poor, the pulsation is weak, which affects venous blood return, increases the pressure in the inferior vena cava, and obstructs the hepatic venous return, causing congestion and swelling of the liver and spleen, increasing the tension of the liver and spleen capsules, and resulting in referred pain. The key to preventing this type of exercise-induced abdominal pain is to do adequate warm-up exercises before exercise to allow the internal organs to adapt.

2. Disordered breathing rhythm

High-intensity exercise disrupts even and rhythmic breathing, reduces oxygen intake, causes hypoxia in the body, and leads to respiratory muscle fatigue. When the diaphragm is fatigued, its massage effect on the liver is weakened, causing congestion and swelling of the liver and causing abdominal pain. For this type of abdominal pain, the key is to adjust your breathing rhythm and breathe through your nose instead of your mouth as much as possible.

3. Lack of exercise

People who do not exercise regularly may easily experience side abdominal pain when they go out for a run on the weekend. Because people who lack exercise generally have weak core muscles, the internal organs near the diaphragm will pull on each other during running, causing pain.

4. Gastrointestinal reflux

As you exercise, you swallow a lot of air, which makes the stomach expand further, making it easy to cause gastroesophageal reflux, belching, heartburn or nausea, resulting in upper abdominal distension and pain.

5. Gastrointestinal spasm

During exercise, gastrointestinal spasms cause abdominal pain, which may be dull pain or bloating in mild cases or paroxysmal colic in severe cases. The pain is mostly located around the navel and upper abdomen. If this type of abdominal pain occurs, you can apply warm compresses to the abdomen to relieve cramps. Preventive measures include not eating too much before exercise, and not eating foods that easily produce gas such as beans, potatoes and cold drinks.

6. Rectus abdominis spasm

It often occurs in the summer when strenuous exercise causes a large loss of water and salt, metabolic disorders in the body, and fatigue, which can cause spasmodic pain in the rectus abdominis. The key to prevention is to replenish salt water appropriately when sweating during exercise in summer, locally massage the rectus abdominis, and do back extension exercises to lengthen the rectus abdominis to relieve abdominal pain.

7. Insufficient blood supply during exercise

The blood supply to skeletal muscles increases during exercise. The increased blood volume is mainly drawn from the internal organs. Therefore, the blood vessels controlling the internal organs contract and the blood supply is insufficient, which causes spasmodic contraction of the gastrointestinal smooth muscles and causes abdominal pain.

8. Improper diet

If you eat too many carbohydrates before running, your stomach and intestines will not be able to digest these foods quickly. The violent vibration of internal organs during running can easily cause gastrointestinal discomfort.

What to do if you have stomach pain while running

1. Beating method: Take a deep breath, then beat the left and right sides of the chest with your fists 3-5 times while holding your breath, then exhale a long breath. After repeating this action several times, the pain will be significantly relieved. After taking a deep breath, you can also ask your friends to help you beat your chest and back, just be sure to use the right amount of force.

2. Squeezing method: Find your pain point through deep breathing, then squeeze your painful area with your hands during deep exhalation, and relax your body while inhaling. Repeating this action several times can effectively relieve pain.

3. Rubbing method: Slow down and adjust your breathing. Rub the painful area of ​​the abdomen repeatedly according to your breathing frequency until the pain gradually subsides.

4. Muscle strength training: Reasonable muscle strength training can effectively enhance your muscle movement ability and is also very helpful for improving the stability of the core muscle groups. Weighted squats, push-ups, dumbbell bench presses, barbell presses, etc. are all common muscle strength training methods.

5. Warm-up preparation: Be sure to do a thorough warm-up before running to get your internal organs into a state of exercise in advance. This can reduce the collision and friction between the internal organs during strenuous exercise.

6. Pay attention to your diet: It is not advisable to consume too much carbohydrates with high sugar content before running. Runners should develop good eating and exercise habits, and should not exercise on an empty stomach or on a full stomach.

7. Adjust your breathing rhythm: During high-intensity exercise, many runners only increase their breathing frequency, but the depth of their breathing does not increase, which can easily lead to side stitches. It is recommended that runners adopt the method of "inhale every two steps, exhale every two steps" or "inhale every three steps, exhale every two steps", try to breathe deeply, let the breathing follow the rhythm of the steps, and control the rhythm.

Do not skip warm-up exercises before running. Do some gentle exercises or jogging to increase your heart rate appropriately and allow your respiratory muscles to gradually adapt to the exercise state you are entering. Start running slowly and gradually increase to a normal speed. Don't speed up all at once. If pain occurs, you can press the painful area with your hands and jog or walk.