How to Treat Injured Muscles

People can easily injure their muscles doing simple everyday activities, such as in doing house cleaning, yard work, playing backyard sport games, moving furniture, lifting grocery bags, and even just bending or stretching one's body in the wrong way. These simple injuries often result in pulled strained muscles and or mild muscles tears. Simple muscle injuries can heal. However, if the simple muscle injuries are not properly treated they can become permanently damaged.

Permanently Damaged Muscles
According to Nerissa Freemen's report "Muscles Injury and Healing", injured muscles can be damaged for life by doing the following:
Forcing yourself to do strenuous activities, such as lifting heavy objects
Doing vigorous motion, such as running, dancing, and exercising
Failing to rest the body
Rubbing the injured muscles roughly

According to Freeman such treatment can weaken the injured muscle permanently, disabling a person from preforming their normal daily activities. The muscle becomes pron to chronic contractions and inflamation.

Preventing Injured Muscles From Being Permanently Damaged
Rest
First of all, when a simple muscle injury occurs immediately stop doing whatever it was that caused the injury. For as long as the muscle feels sore, avoid all vigorous and activity. Rest allows the body to relax and wind down, which in turns can prepare the muscle for treatment.

Treatment To Relax The Injured Muscle
A strained pulled muscles is always accompanied with sore, aching pain as the muscle tightens. To relieve the pain and help the tighten muscle to relax, one should immediately apply heat treatment to the muscles. Sophisticated physical therapy equipment is not needed. A soaking in a bath tub full of hot water would be a good way to relax contracted lower back muscles, leg muscles, foot muscles, thigh muscles, and arm muscles. When showering simply allow hot water to shower on ones back and neck and help to relax tighter back and neck muscles. For tight shoulder and neck muscles try filling a sock with dried beans and heat the bean filled sock in a microwave. Then wrap the sock full of hot beans in a wet towel and then place it on one's shoulders. The moist heat can relax the neck and shoulder muscles which can be the hardest to relax when injured.

Massages
When performing self massages to work out the hardness and tightness, the massage should be done immediately after heat treatment. The massage should be gentle. Do not hit, dig into, nor pull the injured muscles gently.

Nutrition For Injured Muscles
One's diet can also help a muscle injury to heal. There are certain vitamins, minerals, found in food that are essential for muscles to heal and be strong.

Magnesium
Magnesium is very essential to maintaining healthy strong muscle. The lack of magnesium results in weak muscles which leads to muscles tremors, spasms, soreness, cramps, and muscle fatigue. The magnesium is needed in the muscles to relax them and give them the ability to relax. When trying to get over a muscle injury and magnesium deficiency can prolong the injury. So when one has a muscle injury one should take a magnesium nutritional supplement and eat food enriched with magnesium. Magnesium enriched foods are:

spinach
broccoli
mustard greens
halibut
turnip greens
cucumbers
green beans
celery sesame seed
flax seed
soy beans
salmon
black beans
navy beans

Amino Acid
When coping with a muscle injury one should increase their intake of amino acid. Amino acid is food for the muscles. It prevents the muscle from tiring and feeling week. It straightens and muscle. Amino acid is found in high protein foods such as beans, turkey, chicken, fish, and beef. Fish body oils as a nutritional supplement are a good source of amino acids.

Vitamin C
Vitamin C also strengthens weak muscles and reduce soreness after vigorous activity. Vitamin C is found in citrus fruits, cantaloupe, strawberries, tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage, kiwi fruits, Brussel sprouts. A vitamin C supplement is good to take.

Nutrient To Avoid
A person suffering from a muscle injury should avoid a high potassium intake. Potassium is important to have, but it can have a bad affect on injured muscles. Potassium is a doric which runs magnesium out the body, which in turns causes muscle contractions. So during the time of muscle healing, cut back on potassium intake.

When getting a muscle injury one should be very careful to prevent permanent damage. Be sure to get plenty of rest and get the proper nutrition that can help the muscles to heal.