For
many people, cracking their knuckles is therapeutic or is just a habitual act.
Many others, however, fear this act, claiming that doing this repeatedly is a
path to arthritis or some other disease. Your local chiropractor would
disagree.
People
believe the myth of the bad effects of knuckle cracking because they find the
popping sound to be unnatural and associate it with breaking something. This
sound actually comes from the discharge of nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide
caused by the expansion of your sinovial fluid (which is used to lubricate your
joints). When you crack your knuckles, the bones that the joint connects
stretch apart, naturally creating extra space within the connective tissue
capsule which contains the aforementioned fluid; the decreased pressure caused
by this expansion in turn releases the gases rapidly, thus causing the audible
popping sound.
You
may have noticed that you are not be able to crack the same joint immediately
after doing it, and it will stay this way for about thirty minutes. This is
when the gases completely dissolve back into the joint fluid.
Instead
of causing arthritis, knuckle cracking has been shown to improve the mobility
of your joints. This is caused by the stimulation of the Golgi tendons from the
sudden gas dissolution, which in turn relaxes some of your muscles.