Okay, muscle twitching is a hot topic in cyberspace. Millions of men and women have twitching muscles. Many of them freak out and think muscle twitching means the deadly disease ALS because muscle twitching is an ALS symptom. But don’t fear; twitching muscles is a part of normal muscle function.
We evolved to have twitchy muscles. A primary cause of muscle twitching is anxiety and stress. Our muscles twitch in response to anxiety because they anticipate action. So they kind of get revved up; they twitch. Strenuous exercise is also a major cause of muscle twitching, particularly strength training. The more you get to know your muscles and their twitching habits, the more at ease you will be if muscle twitching frightens you.
A twitch of muscles can occur in any muscle that moves voluntarily. So think of which muscles you CANNOT move with free will. Two muscles should come to mind: the heart, and the uterus. The heart and uterus are muscles, but we cannot move them by will. But all skeletal muscles are what are known as voluntary muscles, because we can will them to move.
Most common sites for muscle twitches:
Calves
Arches of feet
Hamstrings (back of legs)
Quadriceps (thighs)
Butt
The next muscle twitch group is:
Chest
Back
Neck
Shoulders
Arms
Fingers
Toes
However, people have claimed to experience muscle twitches at various points on their faces, such as above the upper lip, below the lower lip, the temple, back of head, top of head, forehead, and of course, the notorious eyelid twitches.
The tongue is also a muscle, so this means that twitching can occur in the tongue. This can scare the crap out of some people who know that tongue twitching is a symptom of what’s known as bulbar-onset ALS. But by the time the ALS victim experiences bulbar twitching, he is already having difficulty swallowing, trouble chewing food, and usually trouble speaking.
If the hypochondriac gets carried away, his anxiety will cause him to perceive the sensation of difficulty swallowing, and he’ll begin “hearing” his speech become slurred. These are imagined symptoms that fear causes.
If a muscle in a finger or toe twitches, it usually causes the finger or toe to jump, jitter or briefly shake. This can scare a hypochondriac. But if a muscle in a digit twitches, why WOULDN’T the digit jump? The digit is so small that muscle twitching will make it jump.
When muscles twitch, you can see the twitching. Sometimes the twitch length runs half a foot. After doing pull-ups recently, the moment I stopped and took a seat, a thumping twitch developed in my chest. The twitching persisted all day and evening, but was completely gone come next morning.
At the gym, I could easily view the twitching in the mirror, a horizontal twitch length of about five inches, kind of like something flashing beneath my chest muscle, right under the clavicle bone. Something about the pull-ups triggered this, even though pull-ups do not engage the chest muscles. But chest muscles are antagonists to the back muscles in a pull-up, and this opposing relationship certainly had something to do with the twitches.
Get familiar with your various muscle twitches. Familiarity brings peace of mind. Learn which activities bring on twitching muscles. Think of muscle twitches as internal massages.
