Two miles in running and feeling good. Your steps are relaxed, your breathing is regulated, and those endorphins are ~flowing~.
Suddenly, a sharp, stinging sensation hits the side of his torso, just below his ribs. You slow down without thinking, desperate to get rid of the pain. You planned to run six miles today, but now you’re just thinking how the hell are you going to make it home in one piece.
Nothing gets in the way of an otherwise awesome workout like the dreaded side stitch.
Clinically known as exercise-related transient abdominal pain (ETAP for short), side stitches are “very common”, Sydney Lopezis a licensed athletic trainer at The Stone Clinic in San Francisco, tells SELF. An older survey of 965 athletes published in 2000 in the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, found that nearly 70% of runners and 75% of swimmers reported side stitches in the past year.
But just because a side stitch is common doesn’t mean you have to suffer through it. Read on to find out what the heck causes side stitches, expert-backed tips for banishing them, and red flags that warrant a conversation with your doctor.
What exactly is a side stitch?
A flank stitch is a sharp, localized pain that occurs during exercise and occurs in the abdomen, typically below the rib cage. Hunter Carteris a practicing physiologist at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. “A lot of people will describe it as a stabbing rib pain,” Carter tells SELF. For many people, the sensation occurs on the right side of the body, he says.
A side stitch is different from other exercise-induced abdominal problems, such as muscle cramps (which feel more like straining) and GI distress (which includes cramping accompanied by bloating, nausea, and/or a sudden urge to poop), Carter says.
Why do people get side stitches?
As for what causes a side stitch, “there’s no one exact mechanism that we completely agree on,” Carter says. But the leading theory is that it happens when the parietal peritoneum (a layer of the abdominal lining) becomes irritated from repetitive motion, he says.
Runners who have a lot of vertical oscillation—meaning they bounce up and down during their stride—may be especially susceptible, Cater says. This is because this vigorous movement can push and aggravate the parietal peritoneum.
