Sports injuries that result in chronic pain is due to injuries to the neuromuscular system from excessive and repetitive use of muscles during training and performing in the game. Muscles which are exposed to excessive lengthening contractions and muscles which cross multiple joints are those which are prone to sports injuries.

If you have healthy muscles and nerves as a baseline, these tissues can heal very easily even when subjected to repeated trauma. Genetic factors play the most major role in ability to withstand trauma and ability for tissues to heal, differentiating the common person from the elite athlete. Even the elite athlete can withstand only so much cumulative trauma and once their reserves disappear and also as they age, the tissues have more difficulty in healing and they also suffer from chronic nerve related muscle and joint pain.

The ordinary person however may just have one episode of sports injury such as a fall or lifting injury and they may progress into chronic pain. If they have been injured before they are prime candidates for nerve related muscle pain that can become long-standing. Sports and other trauma related chronic muscle pain can begin even in childhood. Indeed many children as young as 7-8 years old may suffer from sports initiated chronic disabling muscle pain.

Chronic pain is known as pain that will not go away. The person who develops chronic pain may have pre-existent nerve related muscle discomfort or pain. Since this type of person has little to no reserves in the nerve and muscle tissues to heal promptly, additional trauma leads to permanent nerve injury with resultant chronic pain.

Many people will willingly admit that they have been tight in their muscles and joints for as long as they can remember and some will state that they have been tight since childhood. When there is no pain, people usually do not seek medical help for discomfort related to tight muscles or joints. They continue to perform competitive training for sports in addition to performing usual work, recreational, social or home related activities. They live with some degree of discomfort or minor pain related to the muscle tightness but seldom seek help for muscle discomfort until it becomes significant pain.

All movements associated with daily activities tend to injure nerves close to the spine known as spinal nerve roots and also the nerves within the tight muscles. However, low grade injuries related to cumulative slow and insiduous trauma or aging are better tolerated and can heal better. However, when many nerves are injured simultaneously at multiple levels on both sides of the spine as that occurs with sudden blunt trauma as with a whiplash injury healing to obtain a complete cure of the pain or discomfort is difficult.

Due to the force of the sudden trauma, the spinal nerves are acutely and violently stretched, kinked or bruised against the spinal joints, bones or intervertebral discs. The injured and irritated nerves then signal the muscles to go into spasm. The resultant significant muscle spasms will have a vice-like effect on the nerves and blood vessels within them causing more nerves to be injured. This self perpetuating cycle of spinal nerve root injury as well as the intramuscular nerves causing muscle spasms which in turn cause more nerve injury maintains the patient in the state of continued chronic pain.