Vestigial: (of certain organs or parts of organisms) having attained a simple structure and reduced size and function during the evolution of the species. (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/vestigial)
On August 09 of this year, on a fairly short and mundane run--only my third after a six week layoff--I was about a quarter of a mile from home when something in my right calf went "doink!" The way it kind of popped, and felt like something was slithering down through my calf muscles, gave me cause for real concern--never mind the pain and the limping I had to suffer.
So I looked things up on the internet, as we are wont to do in this modern age, and made some assumptions. The description of how and what it all felt like drew me to the conclusion that I may have ruptured, or at least injured, my plantaris muscle.
Further internet searches revealed the possibility that, if it was a plantaris muscle related injury, there may actually be no need to do anything about it. Some research suggests that 7 to 20% of folks don't even have that muscle.
(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1978447/)
Well, it's been a month since the "doink!" and I've run a few miles with no apparent impairment. Other than some persistent soreness in that calf that I would normally attribute to normal muscle aches that you might get when significantly bumping up the intensity of, or starting a new, workout. That and some of the same in my ankle.
Could these both be related to my "vestigial muscle" injury? Or is it just that I've been coming off a 6 week running sabbatical due to a stress injury in the other leg?
If it is related to the plantaris, I'm thinking that maybe mine was actually being used for something and now that workload is being picked up by other muscles and it's just taking some time to learn the ropes.
But I don't know. Food for thought though. It's proven to be quite interesting looking these things up and learning how they possibly relate to what I experienced.
Vestigial muscles and/or organs... If they are, in fact, vestigial, I wonder how many the human body has. I know of at least two that I have.
On August 09 of this year, on a fairly short and mundane run--only my third after a six week layoff--I was about a quarter of a mile from home when something in my right calf went "doink!" The way it kind of popped, and felt like something was slithering down through my calf muscles, gave me cause for real concern--never mind the pain and the limping I had to suffer.
So I looked things up on the internet, as we are wont to do in this modern age, and made some assumptions. The description of how and what it all felt like drew me to the conclusion that I may have ruptured, or at least injured, my plantaris muscle.
Further internet searches revealed the possibility that, if it was a plantaris muscle related injury, there may actually be no need to do anything about it. Some research suggests that 7 to 20% of folks don't even have that muscle.
(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1978447/)
Well, it's been a month since the "doink!" and I've run a few miles with no apparent impairment. Other than some persistent soreness in that calf that I would normally attribute to normal muscle aches that you might get when significantly bumping up the intensity of, or starting a new, workout. That and some of the same in my ankle.
Could these both be related to my "vestigial muscle" injury? Or is it just that I've been coming off a 6 week running sabbatical due to a stress injury in the other leg?
If it is related to the plantaris, I'm thinking that maybe mine was actually being used for something and now that workload is being picked up by other muscles and it's just taking some time to learn the ropes.
But I don't know. Food for thought though. It's proven to be quite interesting looking these things up and learning how they possibly relate to what I experienced.
Vestigial muscles and/or organs... If they are, in fact, vestigial, I wonder how many the human body has. I know of at least two that I have.
No comments:
Post a Comment