Calcium anyone?

[animal-inside]

Anyone ever here of a guy like us being low in calcium?

Long story short, for 10 years or so I get awful muscle knots. Knots that limit my range of motion, take me away from the gym, constant pain etc.. Dry needling is the only thing that seems to get them out. Massage/theragun can help if they haven't gotten too severe. I've tried everything to prevent them and treat them..
I get them in the odds places.. Triceps, biceps, brachioradialis and delts. I never get them in the legs or back.. Seems like it's about 1-4 months before I am able to get rid of a knot once it forms. And seems like there's always something on my knotted up. You can literally grab a knot on me any given time and it feels like I am sort of flexing that muscle, its hard.

Right now, both delts are horribly knotted up. It's been about a month of them slowly getting tighter and more painful. I stopped chest/shoulders for the past 3 weeks and have used theragun daily, physio, dry needling etc.. I have another dry needling appointment next week.

I've tried everything, read everything etc..

I have read that calcium can cause muscle chronic knots, but I have never tried it because I think I have enough calcium in my diet and I'm middle aged, so worry about kidney stones. WHen I mentioned to the doctor that I wonder if low calcium is the issue, the couple I've asked said nope, no way..

I started calcium at 1.2 grams a day this week.

Anyone else experience similar or take calcium?

 

[CoolRick]

To me it sounds like you have poor lubrication of the fascia. The muscles can't move freely in other words.

How much mobility and/ or functional excercise do you prioritize?

 

[Cheapshot]

Nope, I would never supplement calcium unless I was extremely low and couldn't get it from food. Supplementing Calcium can increase the risk of a heart attack, stroke and a bunch of other heart problems I dont wanna deal with

 

[animal-inside]

To me it sounds like you have poor lubrication of the fascia. The muscles can't move freely in other words.

How much mobility and/ or functional excercise do you prioritize?

What would cause poor lube in the muscle fascia?

I do lots for my shoulders and arms.. Whatever the physio lady tells me to do, I do.. I do nothing for my lower body and back and never have an issue

 

[animal-inside]

Nope, I would never supplement calcium unless I was extremely low and couldn't get it from food. Supplementing Calcium can increase the risk of a heart attack, stroke and a bunch of other heart problems I dont wanna deal with

Yup, I know.. I don't know how to go about addressing this without a doctor doing blood work and confirming.. None so far have agreed.. I've done everything doctor's recommended over the years as well, which isn't much except "drink more water" and stretch... I'd be willing to pay for the blood work and I would even pay for my calcium score to see that as well.. I might have to go to a private clinic to have it done.

One thing that's a red flag for me is known causes of low calcium is low stomach acid. I have next to nothing for stomach acid, but I take betaine HCL to supplement it.. I do not know if I'm taking enough though.. My current doctor told me to keep taking the betaince HCL while I wait to get to see a gastro specialist.. I've been on a waiting list for over a year to see one...

 

[animal-inside]

I added up the calcium I take in from my diet and its 800-1000mg... Google doctor says a man 19-50 should get 1000-1200mg a day and no more than 2500mg. So my diet gives me about what I should get.

One 500ml glass of milk gives almost 650mg.. lol.. As a kid/teen I would drink a litre of milk a day.

Food for thought.. Either way, I am going to take 1200mg supplement a day.. Give it a couple weeks.. if I feel better, I'll try to get doctor to get blood work, and if he wont, I'll try private.

 

[CoolRick]

What would cause poor lube in the muscle fascia?

I do lots for my shoulders and arms.. Whatever the physio lady tells me to do, I do.. I do nothing for my lower body and back and never have an issue

Lack of mobility causes the fascia to be bound up and restricted which leads to the tissues not being hydrated enough. Repeative motions like weight lifting causes this as well. There's a chemical aspect to this too but I will address that a bit later in this post.

Physiotherapists often address this by doing unilateral corrective exercises, bands etc as opposed to exercises that promote full body flow. They usually approach it as a problem as opposed to optimization as well. It's not hard to see bodybuilders have next to no flow in the way they move. In other words they are way too stiff and rigid.

Manual release like massage won't fix it, neither will drugs, supplements or rehabilitation type exercises, if mobility, coordination and functionality isn't up to snuff. I'm talking about the kinds of things people do for full on mobility training, but sped up (once the person is able). So more like the type of warm ups a fighter would do.

What kind of things does your physiotherapist have you do so I can better understand what's going on?

 

[Funnyman]

Well there two things to can do, first take vitamins K to help shuttle the calcium properly.

Also you can see a naturalpath, and they can do test on certain level of vitamin & minerals.

Then you know what you low on. Your work benefits should cover the cost.

 

[animal-inside]

Well there two things to can do, first take vitamins K to help shuttle the calcium properly.

Also you can see a naturalpath, and they can do test on certain level of vitamin & minerals.

Then you know what you low on. Your work benefits should cover the cost.

I take vitamin K2 @100mcg a day. Is this the right vitamin K at the right dose?

I'll look into a natural path thank you. I didn't think of them.. I was thinking I'd have to go to a private clinic like I did before

 

[animal-inside]

Lack of mobility causes the fascia to be bound up and restricted which leads to the tissues not being hydrated enough. Repeative motions like weight lifting causes this as well. There's a chemical aspect to this too but I will address that a bit later in this post

Physiotherapists often address this by doing unilateral corrective exercises, bands etc as opposed to exercises that promote full body flow. They usually approach it as a problem as opposed to optimization as well. It's not hard to see bodybuilders have next to no flow in the way they move. In other words they are way too stiff and rigid.

Manual release like massage won't fix it, neither will drugs, supplements or rehabilitation type exercises, if mobility, coordination and functionality isn't up to snuff. I'm talking about the kinds of things people do for full on mobility training, but sped up (once the person is able). So more like the type of warm ups a fighter would do.

What kind of things does your physiotherapist have you do so I can better understand what's going on?

I think there's a decent chance you are correct with what's causing my issues. I will mention it to my physio therapist when I go next.

The physio has me doing a ton of band stuff for the rotator cuff muscle. I also put my armpit on the barbell and hold a weight in the hand to pull my armppit into the barbell and move the weight in circles.. feels like a deep tissue massage in my rear armpit.. I do a band exercise (can use cables) to strength the muscle under my shoulder blade because she says it's not stablizing my shoulder blade enough. I stretch my biceps by standing with my back to a barbell at waist height, reaching behind at shoulder width grip and grabbing the barbell with a overhand grip, then slowly step forward and down so my arms are pulled behind me and up.. Hard to explain.. I use theragun a lot. I have the wife use the marble rolling pin with her whole weight on the muscle while she rolls back and forth over knots. These are probably not the exercises you are referring too, but they do seem to help a bit.. Nothing I do is dynamic movements by any means.. I'm open to suggestions for anything.

When I'm at the physio, its a lot of dry needling and her jamming her fingers into the knots and working them out. Then she gives me more exercises sometimes and sends me on my way.

 

[animal-inside]

Well there two things to can do, first take vitamins K to help shuttle the calcium properly.

Also you can see a naturalpath, and they can do test on certain level of vitamin & minerals.

Then you know what you low on. Your work benefits should cover the cost.

Went through a bunch of Edmonton natural path places. I emailed two I thought were most likely to deal with athletic type stuff.. hard to get a feel for what type of clinic they are based on a website though. Fingers crossed..

I took a full week of the gym last week. Just felt burnt out, tired, shoulders felt like shit (knotting) etc.. So I took a week off. I went back this week and fuck me I was so frustrated because I felt better, rested, refreshed etc.. but my dam shoulders were so tight and knotted that they hurt like hell just holding the barbell for squats.. then on shoulder day, I did my physio excerises with super super light weights to warm up, but I just couldn't do it.. I love being at the gym, but i was so dam mad and frustrated and tired of the same bullshit of my knotted up muscles that I just left. Shouldn't have shocked me becauce for the past few weeks I can hardly get a coat on without lots of pain in the shoulders..

 

[Bigbear]

If you were low in calcium id guess that your bones would be more brittle do you ever get fractures or breaks? This is where supplements can be a nightmare who knows if for example your taking k2 with d3 and its pulling calcium out of your blood and into bones but maybe its pulling it from muscles as well. Just example but fuck me we never really know exactly what were doing...

 

[Sorbate]

If you were low in calcium id guess that your bones would be more brittle do you ever get fractures or breaks? This is where supplements can be a nightmare who knows if for example your taking k2 with d3 and its pulling calcium out of your blood and into bones but maybe its pulling it from muscles as well. Just example but fuck me we never really know exactly what were doing...

I so agree with this. And I find the more I go down the rabbit hole researching, the more conflicting it gets.

 

[animal-inside]

If you were low in calcium id guess that your bones would be more brittle do you ever get fractures or breaks? This is where supplements can be a nightmare who knows if for example your taking k2 with d3 and its pulling calcium out of your blood and into bones but maybe its pulling it from muscles as well. Just example but fuck me we never really know exactly what were doing...

No fractures or breaks except a tooth of mine broke in half chewing gum last year.. Doubt it was due to low calcium, but it also wasn't a cavity.

ya the little reading I've done into calcium so far has told me your bones are storage for it in a way.. when your blood calcium gets too low, it pulls calcium from your bones. When your blood calcium is in excess, it deposits into your bones. Makes me wonder how valid blood tests for calcium would be? Seems like if your body is functioning well, your blood levels would stay within range unless you are severely high or low in calcium OR the mechanisms that store/transport are not working.

Trying calcium at 1200 mg a day for a month will not put me at any risk for heart attack/stroke etc.. If knotting gets better, its something to look into further.. If knotting stays the same, its likely not calcium. I will book a natruopath appointment this week.. That should help as well.

To be honest, it drives me nuts when doctors are so willing to say "its part of aging".. ya no shit as we age we know our bodies change, but some of the biggest advacnes in medicine have come from understanding why an aspect of aging is happening and then learn how to reverse or prevent it.. creatine for example.. As we age, our cognitive function begins to decline.. doctors says "its a part of aging".. now we know things like our creatine levels decline which is a cause of cognitive delcine, so we supplement with it to prevent the cogniitive decline.

 

[CoolRick]

I think there's a decent chance you are correct with what's causing my issues. I will mention it to my physio therapist when I go next.

The physio has me doing a ton of band stuff for the rotator cuff muscle. I also put my armpit on the barbell and hold a weight in the hand to pull my armppit into the barbell and move the weight in circles.. feels like a deep tissue massage in my rear armpit.. I do a band exercise (can use cables) to strength the muscle under my shoulder blade because she says it's not stablizing my shoulder blade enough. I stretch my biceps by standing with my back to a barbell at waist height, reaching behind at shoulder width grip and grabbing the barbell with a overhand grip, then slowly step forward and down so my arms are pulled behind me and up.. Hard to explain.. I use theragun a lot. I have the wife use the marble rolling pin with her whole weight on the muscle while she rolls back and forth over knots. These are probably not the exercises you are referring too, but they do seem to help a bit.. Nothing I do is dynamic movements by any means.. I'm open to suggestions for anything.

When I'm at the physio, its a lot of dry needling and her jamming her fingers into the knots and working them out. Then she gives me more exercises sometimes and sends me on my way.

Yea that won't work. Your body needs to be trained to move better. Stretching just trains you to stretch, bands are more isolation. Over the years my brother would instruct me to do similar things (he's a physiotherapist) and it just never really worked. Temporary relief at best.

You can always look up a simple morning routine for mobility and start doing that, odds are you ought to do it anyway. I'm willing to bet most guys into bodybuilding will fail the most simple mobility and calisthenics routines, I know I did. I've been focusing on this for the past few months, I look like shit vs when I trained for bodybuilding but I function 10x better.

 

[animal-inside]

Yea that won't work. Your body needs to be trained to move better. Stretching just trains you to stretch, bands are more isolation. Over the years my brother would instruct me to do similar things (he's a physiotherapist) and it just never really worked. Temporary relief at best.

Funny you mention it, stretchy does seem to help, but ya not long term.

You can always look up a simple morning routine for mobility and start doing that, odds are you ought to do it anyway. I'm willing to bet most guys into bodybuilding will fail the most simple mobility and calisthenics routines, I know I did. I've been focusing on this for the past few months, I look like shit vs when I trained for bodybuilding but I function 10x better.

What should I specifically look up? Like what type of movement, whats the name for the type of movements.

 

[CoolRick]

Funny you mention it, stretchy does seem to help, but ya not long term.

What should I specifically look up? Like what type of movement, whats the name for the type of movements.

Something like this. If you look up mobility routines you'll see lots of stretching and yoga stuff which isn't the kind of mobility I'm talking about. I'm not sure what the correct word is tbh.

Lately I just close my eyes, relax and move in different ways. Completely random and varying speeds. Something I sorta made up as an antidote for the rigidity of bodybuilding training. Dancing works well too. Just look at how dancers move and it's very coordinated and elegant. They have a great deal of mastery with how they move their body.

In other words, everything bodybuilding is rigid, strict etc. Loosen up a bit!

 

[gondar1]

I so agree with this. And I find the more I go down the rabbit hole researching, the more conflicting it gets.

This is a rabbit hole the size of the grand canyon. I agree with what what @CoolRick has said but back to the rabbit hole for a second -

- The whole industry fucks us or cheats us on one very important thing if you are un-aware, that being what matters is "elemental" total rather than what it might say on the front of the bottle or in advertising. What's on the front may say 1200mg Calcium for example but that number is the total weight of the compound and different compounds have different levels of elemental. If the compound is Calcium Carbonate you'd need to consider that it's only 40% elemental calcium so you are really only getting 480mg. The other 720 is the carrier. In this case that might turn out to be a good thing because if we go back to the rabbit hole we find out that ...

- You can most efficiently absorb only about 500mg at a time. Absorption limits on calcium and other compounds also varies so may need to be considered. Calcium not too much but Magnesium sticks in my mind as one that does.

Personally I've never taken a calcium supplement since the very first time I stood at the top of this rabbit hole, I'd be shocked if I'm somehow not getting enough and have never had blood work indicate a problem, my bone density is top tier. The interaction between all the electrolytes and minerals seems to depend heavily on Magnesium for me, if I get that right the rest appears to balance out although I do pay attention to Pottasium, Sodium, Iron, D3,K2(MK7) and Zinc as well.

Please remember how delicate this ecosystem is and the dangerous shit that can happen to your heart and nervous system beyond tight muscles

 

[animal-inside]

Something like this. If you look up mobility routines you'll see lots of stretching and yoga stuff which isn't the kind of mobility I'm talking about. I'm not sure what the correct word is tbh.

Lately I just close my eyes, relax and move in different ways. Completely random and varying speeds. Something I sorta made up as an antidote for the rigidity of bodybuilding training. Dancing works well too. Just look at how dancers move and it's very coordinated and elegant. They have a great deal of mastery with how they move their body.

In other words, everything bodybuilding is rigid, strict etc. Loosen up a bit!

I am going to give this a try.. however, I'm going to wait and see what calcium does.. I only change one thing at a time so i know what works for me and what doesn't\

I'll definitely let you know when I start and how it goes. I wish there was more shoulder/arm involvement, but I can likely find stuff.

 

[CoolRick]

This is a rabbit hole the size of the grand canyon. I agree with what what @CoolRick has said but back to the rabbit hole for a second -

- The whole industry fucks us or cheats us on one very important thing if you are un-aware, that being what matters is "elemental" total rather than what it might say on the front of the bottle or in advertising. What's on the front may say 1200mg Calcium for example but that number is the total weight of the compound and different compounds have different levels of elemental. If the compound is Calcium Carbonate you'd need to consider that it's only 40% elemental calcium so you are really only getting 480mg. The other 720 is the carrier. In this case that might turn out to be a good thing because if we go back to the rabbit hole we find out that ...

- You can most efficiently absorb only about 500mg at a time. Absorption limits on calcium and other compounds also varies so may need to be considered. Calcium not too much but Magnesium sticks in my mind as one that does.

Personally I've never taken a calcium supplement since the very first time I stood at the top of this rabbit hole, I'd be shocked if I'm somehow not getting enough and have never had blood work indicate a problem, my bone density is top tier. The interaction between all the electrolytes and minerals seems to depend heavily on Magnesium for me, if I get that right the rest appears to balance out although I do pay attention to Pottasium, Sodium, Iron, D3,K2(MK7) and Zinc as well.

Please remember how delicate this ecosystem is and the dangerous shit that can happen to your heart and nervous system beyond tight muscles

Calcium supplementation scares me. Actually a lot of the supplements scare me. One serving of beef liver did more for me in how I felt than a multi vitamin ever could. I now incorporate some liver into my diet at least once a week.

Supplements are inferior to whole foods, but we all know that. Too much of a focus on macro nutrients has us missing out on a lot of nutrients. Chicken and rice type bro diets in particular.

If we want to go down the rabbit hole on this subject we can even talk about compound selection. I didn't want to intially as I felt it may detract from what I believe the real solution is, or at least what I think is the right direction to start, to @animal-inside 's problem instead of another bandaid.

I am going to give this a try.. however, I'm going to wait and see what calcium does.. I only change one thing at a time so i know what works for me and what doesn't\

I'll definitely let you know when I start and how it goes. I wish there was more shoulder/arm involvement, but I can likely find stuff.

While I think that's a good way to rule out what works this would be sort of ignoring that you probably need to move around in my varied ways anyways. It's sort of like prioritizing supplements over whole foods in my view.

For shoulder health I feel it's more important to focus on scapular control and strengthening the serratus muscles, than presses and bands etc. For arms and shoulders doing halos with a kettlebell is great for targeting what I mentioned earlier. Hanging, and believe it or not, chin up technique. Things like lat pull downs have us shortening our range of motion and limiting our coordination.