Sports Medicine This can prevent side punctures

Regular running is healthy. It helps to prevent cardiovascular disease and reduces the risk of diseases such as diabetes or obesity. Jogging has long since become a popular sport. An unpleasant side effect is side stitching. Although the causes of the stinging pain are not clear, but something can be done about it.
Healthy running with painful side effects
According to health experts, regular jogging can help prevent various illnesses and help with weight loss. It also plays an important role in stress reduction. Running has become a real mass movement. Most runners might well know unpleasant side effects. Among other things, it often comes to calf cramps, against the preventive turn, can help a lot of exercise and magnesium. Even more common, however, is the piercing. How exactly the stinging pain is triggered is unclear. But with some tips can counteract very well.

This helps with side punctures. Image: underdogstudios - fotolia

Breathe deeply and evenly into the abdomen
Although the training was actually going very well at the moment, the first laps have been turned and there is certainly no lack of ambition. But then suddenly side piercing breaks everything. Many runners know the problem and also know that it then means: slowing down the pace. As Rüdiger Reer, General Secretary of the German Sports Doctors' Association (DGSP) and Professor in the Department of Exercise and Movement Medicine at the Institute of Human Movement at the University of Hamburg explains in a message from the news agency dpa, it also helps to breathe deeply and evenly into the abdomen. "You already gain something when you try to reduce the strain on the diaphragm," says the expert. But if you can not get rid of the pain this way, you should go better than jog to reduce the strain on the diaphragm and abdomen. Some experts warn anyway that excessive jogging harms and point out that the health-promoting effect is achieved only by regular "easy" or "moderate" running.

Do not eat before training
While running itself can according to the dpa message help from the beginning even breathing to prevent sideways. Reer recommends breathing in and out every three steps. You should not eat anything before training, at most a snack like a banana. If there is no extra energy for digestive work, more energy is left for running. A long-term measure is to improve endurance. This reduces the effort and thus the risk of getting side stitches. Where they actually come from is still not clear. "There are different theories, none is 100 percent proven," said Reer.

What causes side stitches?
The expert explains that, in theory, the blood flows too fast from the liver and spleen on exertion, causing the pain. Another theory is that the spleen becomes more inflamed by the strain, swells and the stretching of the surrounding peritoneum causes the pain. And according to the news agency, respiration plays a crucial role in the third theory: the sustained stress and deep, rapid breathing overload the diaphragm. As a result, there is an oxygen deficiency and it causes the convulsive pain. As a trigger for Seitenstechen is also a forward bent position suspected, because it puts more pressure on the abdominal cavity. (Ad)