The Real Problem with Inflammation: AMI

You’ve been training for that big 5K and you notice a little bit of swelling around your knee. Seems to happen every time you go on a long run and the inflammation just stays there for a while. You think, “No big deal, right? This happens to a lot of people.” You’ll just deal with it. Or maybe it’s your ankle. You’ve rolled it several times playing basketball over the years and now it seems like every time you play you get a little swelling down there. “If it doesn’t hurt, there’s no problem, right?”

Wrong! Swelling around a joint, even mild swelling, that lasts a long time or comes and goes frequently can lead to something called arthrogenic muscle inhibition, or AMI for short. This is when your muscles don’t respond quite as well in the presence of inflammation. The scientific reason for this is quite complicated, but the bottom line is this can lead to weakness and muscle atrophy over time. Though this is potentially true for any joint in the body, however, the most research has been done on the knee and the ankle.

If you have persistent inflammation in these areas, then it may be much more difficult for the muscle to maintain its strength and ability to stabilize the joint, which puts you at an increased risk of injury. What’s more, inflammation affects the body’s ability to sense joint movement, which means your balance through that joint could be affected. Rather than viewing inflammation as an unwanted by-product of training hard, you may want to prioritize getting rid of it and preventing it. It can be related to your run form, however, a lot of times it has to do with the mechanics of your knee or ankle. Good news, this can be addressed with exercise! Check out my next blog where we will talk about some effective ways of getting rid of inflammation. 

Do you have any questions about pain or inflammation?  Let me know in the comments!