Fat fingers while working out?!!??

Swoopette

Hey there all,


This happens to me once in awhile but hasnt for a long time so I am wondering why. I was on the treadmill at 3.9 incline of 1 then 2 back to 1. My hands got super puffy and tight then my arms got cold and tight. It felt like all the water had came out of that area. Once I got to the stretches all back to normal. I am 5'7' 165 pounds (so only about 20 pounds over weight) I havent cardioed (ha ha is that a word? it is now) in 10 days. One day of bowling in there but that doesnt really count.

Here is my day before it happened:

Got up at 8am and had Fibre One with 1/2 cup of 1% milk, then went back to bed. Got up at 12:20pm, went to Subway for lunch, Whole Wheat 6 inch Cold Cut with bread taken out, tomatos, cucumbers, lettuce, salt (not lots), pepper and light on the house dressing. Then a small coke (which is about a meduim Mc Donalds coke) Only had about 2 glasses of water in the morning. Went to the gym and drank about 3/4 of 710mls of water during my 65 minute walk.

What happened to me? I am not worried just wondering why this happens sometimes?

Thanks
Swooopette

dansu2000

Sounds like water retention to me....used to happen to me a lot when I was pregnant

tater8589

That happens to me ALL the time. If I forget to take my rings off... well I'm gonna have 'em on a while lol. I think its just the extra blood flow from my heart rate being raised. Generally its not a problem. If your concerened though you may talk with your dr about it.

karot32

This happens to me when I don't drink enough water or if I eat too much sodium.

jbug100

Are you gripping the the hand rail tightly? Sometimes I see people looking like they are holding on for dear life and if they let go of the rail, they will go flying off the back of the machine. If you are I would decrease intensity so that you don't have to " hold on". Gripping to tight might impair circulation and cause your symptoms.

elainegsd

Sounds like water retention/sodium as the others have said. Something to try if it happens again, put your hands on top of your head, or cross your arms and put your hands on the opposite shoulders, or ??? Basically try to find a comfortable position with your hands above your heart. That should help. It should happen less often as you exercise more frequently.

Nina74

This used to happen to me...I can't remember why it happened, but I read somewhere that pumping/swinging your arms can prevent it. I think I was letting my arms hang by my side too much. That helps, plus I notice if it is starting to happen I will clench and unclench my fists every so often to keep the blood moving.

Swoopette

Sounds like water retention to me....used to happen to me a lot when I was pregnant

Why would I only get water retention while I work out though?

Also to answer someone else's question, No I m not holding on the the rails.

Another answer, yes my hands are at my sides so will try lifting them above my head when it happens again. Or start swinging them. I do squeeze them and rub them but doesn't make a difference in the fingers.

Not worried about it just thought it was weird. My arms get cool too.

elainegsd

Why would I only get water retention while I work out though?

Due to a combination of gravity, maybe swinging your arms, and your heart working hard to pump blood around.

cmriverside

From http://www.ideafit.com/fitness-library

In an attempt to prevent body temperature from rising to dangerous levels during exercise, your central nervous system orchestrates a complex response in which blood vessels supplying your inner organs constrict, while blood vessels supplying your skin dilate, causing blood to be diverted away from inner organs and directed outward to the skin to increase cooling through the convection of air over your skin’s surface. It may seem somewhat counterintuitive that as your core body temperature is rising during exercise in the heat, skin temperature decreases as a result of convective cooling. More blood being directed to the skin means less blood (and therefore less oxygen) going to the active muscles, causing exercise intensity to decrease and the perception of effort to increase.

When your body has a choice between cooling itself and maintaining exercise intensity, it’s going to choose the former. So on this hot, humid day, your running pace slows and you feel fatigued. You notice a sprinkler on a neighbor’s lawn and run past it, hoping to cool yourself, but you quickly realize that spraying water on your body, while refreshing, is not effective for decreasing body temperature. To decrease body temperature, you need to ingest the fluid.

As if trying to prevent your body from overheating weren’t enough, accompanying the increase in thermal strain is a greater cardiovascular strain. Profuse sweating to increase evaporative cooling causes a loss of plasma volume from the blood, and total blood volume decreases. When blood volume decreases, stroke volume (the volume of blood pumped by the heart with each beat) decreases. A decreased stroke volume means that oxygen flow to your muscles is then compromised and the exercise intensity decreases. To compensate for decreased stroke volume, your heart must work harder to pump blood, and your heart rate drifts upward in an attempt to maintain cardiac output (the volume of blood pumped by the heart each minute) and blood pressure. This rise in heart rate during prolonged exercise without an increase in intensity is called cardiac drift. Heart rate rises 3–5 beats per minute for every 1% of body weight loss from dehydration (Casa et al. 2000).

http://www.ideafit.com/fitness-library/exercising-in-the-heat

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It has lots more! Bottom line, HYDRATE! Before, during and after exercise. It stands to reason that excess blood flowing to your extremities would cause swelling. (That's my guess. Plus it says "blood volume increases." Which would cause edema, too.) Send a message to one of the docs on this site. Or a sports medicine person. I know SHBoss talked about it here a couple times, but I'm not going to be able to find the post. :flowerforyou:

ileanna

Moving your arms will probably help, because the blood was probably all being diverted to your legs. Also, I agree that you should try to up your water intake and decrease sodium in the hours before you work out.

california_peach

That happens to me all the time when I do a long walk. It is just because your arms are straight. Move them around or hold only the rails.

hunterr

Very thin people can easily get refeeding syndrome if they suddenly increase exercise and food intake at the same time. I'm sure heavier weight people can also have a milder reaction to the same conditions. The body doesn't like to be jumpstarted it seems.

cmriverside

Very thin people can easily get refeeding syndrome if they suddenly increase exercise and food intake at the same time. I'm sure heavier weight people can also have a milder reaction to the same conditions. The body doesn't like to be jumpstarted it seems.

Huh? Different subject......

sallyLunn

It happens to me sometimes, especially if I am walking instead of running because of the way I hold my arms. Sometimes I lift my hands over my head for a bit and I can feel the swelling going down. Sometimes, I don't really do anything about it. It goes away when I cool back down.

hunterr

Mild refeeding syndrome causes edema in the hands and feet. I'm just saying, I think sometimes normal/heavy weight people who suddenly start a new diet and exercise program, that significantly jumpstarts their metabolism, might be suffering from edema for the exact same reasons that a thin person does.

A lot of people (thin and heavier), even on a diet, will eat more when they suddenly increase their exercise, because it makes them hungry or they think they earned it, or were told to replace the calories.

The OPs swelling went right down as soon as she stopped the activity, which makes this less likely to be the cause, but I'm just throwing this out here as a possible cause of edema from exercising.

The body does not like to be jumpstarted. People think it's the food that cases the syndrome, but from what i understand it's the too quick jump in metabolism, and that exercise is more of a jumpstart than an increase in food, but that the combo is the hardest on the body. That is one of the reasons why when food is suddenly increased in low weight people, exercise is restricted.

The healthier a body, the more stress it can take. A little edema can go unnoticed or ignored by many people and quickly resolves itself. But sudden jumpstarts are hard on all of us and slow and steady wins the race.