Question: What Causes Muscle Pain?
Ergonomics often looks at ways to reduce of remove causes of pain. That will make the task more efficient and comfortable. However, before you remove potential pain points you have to know what causes pain.
Answer: Muscle pain is caused by excessive tension in your muscles. The pain is your body's way of telling you that the muscle needs to relax so that the tension may be abated.
Muscle tension that leads to pain is caused by three things:
- Trauma - this can be an acute or repetitive stress injury
- Stress - both physical and mental stress
- Musculoskeletal misalignment - bad posture, twisted spine, etc.
These stressors cause a muscle to over tighten, or stay tight for too long, or both. As a result the muscle aches for relief and causes you pain.
