Crappy Weather and the Cause of Achy Joints

So the past few days have been extra crap-tacular around here, weather-wise. It’s cold enough that I’m worried we may get frost, which means all the delicious food stuffs I planted last week may kick the bucket. And for your information, yes, having a garden does give my man card a big gold star. I mean, when was the last time you called out a farmer for not being a man? Well, called him out and left with your dangle-berries intact from his round of buckshot. That, and farmers daughters are hot.

I should know, I’m marrying one. Score some brownie points for this guy!!

As a result of the ass-tastic weather, a lot of people are coming in complaining of aching knees/back/shoulders/elbows/hymen/ankles, all independent of any workouts, lifestyle, diet, or any other factors. On top of that, everyone is complaining of low energy, moodiness, crankiness, banshee-ness, whatever. Essentially, with a rapid temperature and barometric pressure change over a three-day period, everyone is feeling the effects.

I’m sure you’ve experienced this at one point in time or another. In fact, a quick check on Pubmed and a few other research search engines showed that rapid changes in barometric pressure can cause problems with every part of the body listed above, some more conclusively than others. There were some studies that showed that static pressure didn’t have any increased incidence of pain, which meant that even in crazy cold climates like Edmonton, the temperature doesn’t cause pain, just the pressure changes.

So how does this actually affect your physiology, and more importantly is there anything you can do about it?

First, let’s consider a few things about the human body. One: it’s made of roughly 70-75% water, the remainder is made of cell walls, contractile proteins and hairy bits. As such, the water is under the effects of fluid dynamics, and changes in pressure, temperature, and volume can impact how the body works. Wanna test this out? Grab a salt container and chow down, washing it down with a gallon of water. Check out your abs, cuz they’re about to vanish. As the volume of stored water increases, you may find your joints don’t move as freely as they did a few minutes ago. This means the increase in volume increased the pressure, which increased the viscosity of the fluid and reduced how well it flowed through your joints and blood vessels. Still with me so far? Wicked.

Let’s use a simpler example to explain joint pain. Suppose for a damn second that there’s fluid inside your synovial joints – specifically the major ones you can get pain in – as well as in the discs of your back. These areas are essentially enclosed and can’t change size or contact area. Check out the wicked formula here:

Now I’m going to go all math geek on you here, so bear with me. Let’s say the barometric pressure changes, which causes a change on the fluid flowing through the joint capsule. The area stays the same, which means the force applied to the joint has to change along with it. When pressure decreases, the force of the fluid within the joint to resist compression is reduced along with it, which means more surface to surface contact, which means more achiness for your mom and dad.

So what the hell do you do about it??

Well, by getting the body moving, you can increase the mechanical pumping of the joints, and increase the volume of fluid entering into the joint capsule, which can help to increase the pressure, and therefore increase the distractive force inside the joint and prevent the two bony surfaces from rubbing against each other.

By moving the body in moderate speed, moderate load type activities that limit the amount of impact the joints have to be placed under, you can squeeze a lot more fluid into the joints without risking damage to the joints.

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Does this mean you can’t do any heavy deadlifts?? Perish the thought!! All it means is that you have to warm up like a mutha before you start lifting heavy stuff off the floor. I’m talking general cardio, foam rolling, active mobilization, motor pattern grooving, progressive resistance, and THEN getting to the good stuff.

Trust me, every day I wake up on crappy days like these, I know it before my little piddies hit the floor and I stumble/stagger into the shower to get a shot of wake-up each morning. I don’t even have to look out the window to know there’s something seriously wrong going on out there. My back is typically stiff and tight, my right knee is acting up, my ankles are both cracking like a crazed cassonnette player on a combination of speed and meth, and my neck is making shoulder checking a fun chore. However, once I get moving around, I’m back to my limber, Tosh.0 lovin self in no time, and I’m off to make others happy-go-lucky in pursuits of physical awesomeness for another day.