Running, upper abs or diaphram spaz out & give way

[heeko]

This has been a real mystery for me for the past few years.  I've been a competitive runner for almost 20 years, and never had this problem until a few years ago.  Most of the time everything is fine on easy runs; the problem mostly occurs when running faster paces - when I go to the track to do intervals/repetitions at faster paces (anything from 50% effort to full sprints) or do a race.

Here's the problem:  After about 10-15 minutes of intervals or racing, my upper abs or diaphram muscles seem to seize up from over-exertion, resulting in significant difficulty breathing.  Think of how your muscles feel when you do high-rep weight training - muscles start to burn w/ pain, eventually give way.. That is what's happening to my abs/diaphram.  Can be very uncomfortable/painful between intervals, performance hindered greatly by it.

My ab muscles aren't perfect, but I do regular ab work/crunches, etc. to maintain them, so I'm hard-pressed to believe it's as simple as weak ab muscles.  The only thing I have narrowed it down to is.. belly fat ??  I have some unwanted visceral fat.. perhaps the abs are over-working to hold it in during faster runs ??  Or the extra 'stuff' in belly is putting pressure on diaphram from all the jarring and bouncing during sprints?

Any feedback on this would be greatly appreciated, I am out of theories and out of solutions.

Thanks!
Heeko

[Dr Vinod]

The first thing you do is give a break every 15 minutes till you figure out the problem.
Did you have C-Section? any abdominal procedure and if you had, get yourself examined for the reason of the pain in the abdominal muscles. If it is normal and you do not have any abdominal surgery etc then you have to build your abdominal muscle strength slowly.
Also do some weights, floor exercises, abdominal stretching exercises etc. Take care!