I’ve always heard it’s bubbles popping and I know that can’t be true. I need to know what actually happens when it’s cracked. Please ELI5.
In: 0
>I’ve always heard it’s bubbles popping and **I know that can’t be true**. I need to know what actually happens when it’s cracked. Please ELI5.
You’ve heard the right answer and are refusing to believe it? Not sure we can help you. There is fluid in your joints and cracking them releases gas bubbles that pop. Up to you if you want to believe it.
There IS fluid in your joints! It’s called synovial fluid and it lubricates the joints so that the bones don’t grind against each other. Synovial fluid has nitrogen in it and like any gas, this forms bubbles. The bubbles can’t go anywhere cuz your joint is a closed pace, but when you “crack” your joints, those bubbles pop, making the sound.
It depends on the particular joint being popped. For knuckles and the much more rare shoulders, it is indeed bubbles being popped/crushed in the sinovial fluid of your joint. For things like wrists, it is usually a combination of tendons and ligaments “snapping” into place past a bony ridge or extrusion. Ankles are the same. Collarbones are the sound of the actual bone moving violently (“popping”) between stable configurations. For several pseudojoints like where your ribs connect to your breast cartilage, it’s the sound of the end of the bone resetting into the cuplike end of the cartilage. Shoulder blades are a mix of tendons and sinovial fluid bubbles. The neck and spine are a mix of all of the above, with the added bonus of subluxations, where one vertebrae is twisted in relation to the next and needs to slide back into place past the natural shape of the bone.
I am a person who grew up cracking and popping virtually every joint in my body. This is all from extensive experience and reading.
Latest Answers