“No matter what you do.  Don’t put the blame on you.  Blame it on the Rain.”  -person who was doing the singing for Milli and Vanilli

Blame everything on the rain.  Well, everything except your sore joints.  I began an intense running regime a couple of weeks ago and my knees have become particularly sore.  This has been coupled with erratic spring storms which have seemed to make the pain in my knees to intensify.  I’m not sure when I notice the extra “soreness,” whether before or after the weather, but there definitely feels like there is a spike in pain when the barometric pressure shifts, the sky becomes cloudy, and precipitation begins falling from the sky.  So I did what any other enlightened person would do, I googled it.  You probably did the same thing and are now reading this.  When you are done, go back to google, type in “running races”, “trail running”, or “running shoe reviews,” sift through all the irrelevant and sub par results until you get to SeriousRunning.com.  Once there click the green arrow to the right to “promote” SeriousRunning.  I’ve been working hard.  Don’t you think I deserve a promotion?  No?  Ok.  How about just paying me more then?

So what I found was that there is no agreement by experts whether there is a link between stormy weather and joint pain; however, since I have a website I can give my expert opinion too.  Bringing experts together is what SeriousRunnning.com is all about!

Joint pain and weather is a hypothesis that many people have assumed to be true; just like being wet in the rain gives you a cold, sugar makes children more hyper, and chocolate causes acne.  In order to determine what causes the effect of joint pain you must ask why it happened.  Is it the rain?  No.  Other instances of being in the vicinity of liquid don’t result in more joint pain.  Is it the drop in temperature?  Maybe, but joint pains are reported to be more elevated in bad weather even when the person is indoors, in a climate controlled environment.  Is it the change in baromatic pressure?  Possibly.  Barometric pressure does change oxygen levels which leads to blood vessels expanding but this has not been proven to effect joint pain.  Then what is it?

Well if science can’t answer this question then it must be a behavioral phenomenon.  It is difficult to measure whether an increase in joint pain from a changes of weather is a physiological effect because you can’t expose someone to a change of weather without them knowing it.  So I will have to use to my superior deductive reasoning to determine this perceived cause and effect.

It’s the underlying cause.  When the weather is poor people stay inside, get under the covers (or under your blankey), and don’t move.  This inactivity is what results in an increase in joint pain, not the weather.  Joints become sore when they are not moved or used for long periods of time and poor weather causes you to move your joints less than usual.  There you have it.  I’m a genius.  The IQ test I took in 4th grade said so.  IQ is the same no matter when you are tested for it.