Let’s look in more detail at what can cause pain in your abdominal region that is the result of pulling, straining, or tearing an abdominal muscle. Pulled or Strained Abdominal Muscle: Symptoms, Causes, and Treatments However, straining during a bowel movement if you have constipation, not lifting heavy items properly, or chronic coughing or sneezing can all result in strained abdominal muscles and/or a hernia. For example, hernia generally isn’t caused by intense exercising or sudden movements. Some types of physical activity can cause both pulled abdominal muscle pain and hernia. Because of this, hernias can also make it difficult to have a bowel movement. This can happen because the hernia in your abdominal region pushes on your colon or bowel and causes an obstruction. Some types of hernias can cause nausea and vomiting. Gastrointestinal problemsĪbdominal pain doesn’t usually cause nausea and vomiting or other gastrointestinal issues. However, abdominal pain may show signs of bruising if it was caused by a severe muscle strain or injury to your stomach. For example, a hernia around your navel will look like an “outie” belly button. Hernia doesn’t cause bruising but will look like a skin-colored bulge that may be red because of inflammation. If you have been exercising, working out, or lifting heavy items, you may experience stiff abdominal muscles or stomach spasms after strenuous physical activity. Hernia doesn’t cause muscle stiffness or other spasms around the bulge.

Stomach muscle pain can be “crampy” when caused by exercising or overuse. In fact, you may only realize you have a hernia when you see a bulge in your stomach or groin. One way to tell the difference between hernia and pulled abdominal muscles is that hernia doesn’t necessarily cause any abdominal cramping. However, a pulled abdominal muscle feels more like a stabbing pain in the area where the strain happened whereas a hernia causes a burning-like sensation that is more like a dull ache or a feeling of fullness. Not all hernias are painful and may just be sore when you move. PainĪ pulled abdominal muscle will cause varying degrees of pain that gets worse when you move. Abdominal muscle strains don’t cause a bulge or visible lump. A hernia will usually cause a distinct bulge where the tissue or organ pushes through the muscle wall. The soleus fibers were unusually short relative to the muscle volume, thus potentiating its force potential.One of the easiest ways to tell if your pain is caused by a hernia or pulled stomach muscle is if you have a bulge or not. With the exception of the soleus, the mean fiber length of all subjects was closely related to muscle volume across muscles. The major dorsiflexor, the tibialis anterior (TA), had a muscle volume of 143 cm2, a PCSA of 19 cm2, and an ACSA of 9 cm2. These PCSA values were eight (soleus), four (MG), and three (LG) times larger than their respective maximum ACSA. The mean PCSA of the soleus was 230 cm2, about three and eight times larger than the MG (68 cm2) and LG (28 cm2), respectively. The mean volumes of the major plantarflexors were 489, 245, and 140 cm3 for the soleus and medial (MG) and lateral (LG) heads of the gastrocnemius. The PCSA of each muscle was calculated as muscle volume times the cosine of the angle of fiber pinnation divided by fiber length, where published fiber length:muscle length ratios were used to estimate fiber lengths. Muscle length was determined as the distance between the most proximal and distal images in which the muscle was visible. Muscle volumes were calculated from the summation of each anatomical CSA (ACSA) and the distance between each section. For 12 healthy subjects, the boundaries of each muscle or muscle group were digitized from images taken at 1-cm intervals along the length of the leg. Magnetic resonance imaging techniques were used to determine the physiological cross-sectional areas (PCSAs) of the major muscles or muscle groups of the lower leg.

Xsection of muscle