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Short Stuff: Knuckle Cracking · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff, Josh, Chuck. Cheerry's
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: sitting in for day, So this is short stuff. Chuck.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: I have a question for you. Are you cracking your
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: knuckles right now?
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: I am. Did you hear that?
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that wasn't like a like a foldy effect.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: No, I was cracking my knuckles. I'm a knuckle cracker.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: I don't do it. I did it a lot when
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: I was a kid, but I still do it some.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: This is what my knuckles sound like when I crack them.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: That's it the Yeah, I can't do it again because
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: I have to wait twenty to thirty minutes for the
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: airbus to come back and cavitate once more.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll tell everybody what's going on here. What I know.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: There was a lot of you know, when you're young,
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: everyone was like, it'll give you arthritis, and it's your
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: your bones grinding together, and that's what racking your knuckles
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: as and that can't be good for you.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Yes, if your bones ground together, you would not be
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: able to think of anything else but your bones grinding together,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: because you would be in so much pain that you
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: would know your bones are grinding together. That's not what
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: cracking your knuckles is it turns out instead, it has
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: everything to do with the space and the area around
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: where your bones come together. Your bones don't actually come.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Together, that's right, where there's a joint that is where
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: two bones meet, but they're separate and they're held together
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: by ligaments and connected tissues and all that stuff. But
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: there's also some a very other key ingredient in there.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: It's called synovial fluid. It's a thick, clear liquid that
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: kind of encases that area, right.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's thick, it tastes just like orange crush CRUs surprisingly.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: And when you pop your knuckle, what you're doing is
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: stretching or bending the ligaments and connective tissues and the
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: cyanoval fluid there too. Right. So when you do that,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: that capsule is what it's called the connective tissue capsule
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: that includes the synovial fluid. It gets stretched, which increases
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: its volume, and then suddenly the pressure inside the capsule
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: in that synovial fluid it goes down. It decreases in pressure,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: which means that all these gases that used to just
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: be part of the solution now are part of the problem.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: I mean now turn into bubbles.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: That's right. So they become you know, they form those bubbles,
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: and if you stretch that joint far enough, like you know,
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: trying to crack your knuckles, the pressure in the capsule
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: goes so low that it just pops those bubbles. And
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: that's the popping sound that we're hearing.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: There, you go, not your bones rubbing together? Okay, I
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: want you to go to recess and tell your friends
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: that is not your bones rubbing together.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And then the cavitation you mentioned earlier, I think
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: before we break, we should just clear that up. You
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: said twenty to thirty minutes. That is how long it
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: takes for that gas to reach dissolve into that joint fluid,
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: and uh, cavitation is is possible again.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: My knuckles?
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Exactly.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Oh I just did one again. Okay, I say we
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: take a little break and come back and talk about
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: how we know that cracking your knuckles doesn't give you arthritis.
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: All right, we'll be right back, Chuck.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: I know we've talked about this guy before, doctor Donald Unger.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: I think we did a video about him, but he
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: you know what, I'll bet we talked about him in
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: the Ignoble Prize episode because he won an ignoble for this,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: butentually he conducted an experiment for sixty years because he
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: wanted to prove his mother wrong. And he only cracked
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: the knuckles and I think his left hand never cracked
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: him on his right hand.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: It's crazy.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: And then after sixty years he finally said, okay, it's
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: time and he x rayed his hands.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, if he didn't have the compulsion to crack his knuckles,
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: I could see how this happened. But if you are
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: a knuckle cracker, you're kind of you feel compelled to
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: do it. So I can't imagine what it would have
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: taken to not crack the knuckles on one hand for
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: that many years. It must have been really tough. Yeah, sure,
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: that's my guess. So, yeah, he did this over his lifetime.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: He x rayed himself on the rag and eventually, decades later,
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: came to the conclusion that he doesn't have any arthritic
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: difference in his hands.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Case closed, he had nad no arthritic difference.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: That's not to say though, that even if you don't
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: get arthritis from cracking your knuckles. It's another thing you
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: can tell your friends at recess, did they even have
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: recess anymore. I guess maybe yeah, our long screen time.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: No, they have recess, Okay, great.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: There is damage that you can do from cracking your
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: knuckles habitually. There was a guy named Raymond Broder and
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: he examined three hundred people who crack their knuckles to
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: look at what their joints looked like, and compared to
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: the control group, no difference with arthritis. Again, but there
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: was other damage like soft tissue damage to that the
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: ligaments and the synovial fluid capsule, and that they had
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: a decrease in grip strength. So if you crack your
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: knuckles a lot, like don't even think about holding a
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: glass of water with just one hand.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which you know as you age, grip strength is important.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: So it's definitely not a harmless thing. There's some other
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: possible side effects, something called ligament laxity, which is basically
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: looseness over time. If you're just doing this a lot,
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: that that's what leads to the reduced grip strength and
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: sometimes sort of overall hand function. I think in rare cases,
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: if you're if you have a really weird method or
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: forceful method, or you're a little too aggressive with it,
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: you can get some soft tissue swelling around the knuckles
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: in the joint.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you can just straight up injure yourself. If
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: you you can like dislocate a joint, you can injure
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: your tendons. And even if you don't straight up injure yourself,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: just habitually cracking your knuckles over time, the stretching of
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: the ligaments can it. Like you said, the grip strength
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: thing is a is a big deal, just even without
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: cracking your knuckles. So it also happens in pictures too,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: major league pictures, imagine minor league pictures too. But over
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: the years, just throwing over and over and over again,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: they're stretching those ligaments suddenly violently basically, which is kind
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: of what you're doing when you crack your knuckles. They're
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: just doing it with different ligaments. But that is why
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Oral Hirsheiser's right arm just dangles uselessly at his side
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: because it's been ruined. He ruined it pitching.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I know you're kind of kidding, but
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: sad but true. Like, especially these days, there's been more
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: and more instances of Tommy John surgery being required because
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: pitchers are throwing harder and harder and if you're not,
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: you know, able to get it near one hundred miles
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: an hour these days, you're not gonna have much of
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: a chance. So it's a real problem in baseball.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Bring down from my joke.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I just love that you love saying Earl Hirschheiser.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Sure, who oughtn't say?
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: Boy? He was great? There was a study in nineteen
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: ninety that confirmed the grip strength thing. I think they
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: study seventy four people who regularly crack their knuckles, and
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: their average grip strength was definitely lower, and they had
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: more instances of hand swelling than the two hundred and
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: twenty six people who did not crack. And another interesting
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: thing is they found that in another study that if
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: you're a habitual knuckle cracker, you are more likely to
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: be a manual laborer, more likely to bite your nails
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: as I do, smoke cigarettes which I don't, and drink
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: alcohol which I do.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so you know three for five.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah I don't manual labor so okay too, shouldn't count
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: that one.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: So there is some benefits to actually cracking your knuckles though, too.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: We're not just hating on cracking your knuckles. There's something
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: called the Goldie tendon organs, not the Goldie apparatus. That's
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: a different, different episode altogether. The Goldie tenon orggans sense
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: muscle tension, and when you crack your knuckles, you're actually
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: relieving some muscle tension, So the muscles around the joints
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: when you crack them get relaxed, so you can feel like,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: you know, your your hands feel pretty mellow after cracking
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: your knuckles. I saw it described as yoga for your knuckles.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: Oh interesting, yeah, I thought so too, So like getting
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: your back cracked or.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Something basically, yeah, but for your knuckles.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we found one more thing, you know, Like I'm
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: at the age where you know, if I kneel down
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: to get something, you're gonna hear a couple of snap
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: crackle and a pop maybe. And then from some part
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: of my body.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Do you make an involuntary sound too when you're getting up?
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: I do, oh oh yeah, like oh god, here we.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Go, yeah, something like that, like you can't not.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: Do it, yeah for sure. And when I walk downstairs,
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: my right ankle, like on every step just goes pop
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: pop pop. So those things happen. I don't think anyone
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: knows exactly where that comes. From theirs speculation. It could
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: be just like you know, if it's your knee, it
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: maybe your kneecap rubbing on the bones or something like that,
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: or maybe a tendon sliding over a bumpy surface or
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: something like that. So I don't think it's anything to
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: be alarmed about.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: It is alarming, though, for sure.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because it comes with age. So every new pain
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: and sound is like, huh, that didn't happen a few years.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: Ago, Exactly, I should go sit down for a while, right,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: you got anything else for short stuff? Guy?
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: I got nothing else. I can't crack my knuckles. So
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: oh wait, there went one recavitated.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: So what does that mean?
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: Though?
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: I think that means short.
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: Stuff is out.
• 10:38
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• 10:41
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• 10:45
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