I work out a lot, and I particularly love the crosstrainer. However, I always get a stitch in my left side about 13 minutes in when on the crosstrainer. No matter how much I stretch it or drink water it doesn't go away until I stop the crosstrainer. This only happens if the crosstrainer is the first piece of equipment I go on.

Is there any way to stop stitches?

My daughter has just started exercising more and she gets stitches easily. I've been browsing the web looking for advice, and this is one of the best pages I've seen:

http://www.competitorsocal.com/train...treatment.html

Oddly, my daughter also always has them on her left side, but most ppl supposedly get them on their right side, so I don't know what is up with that.

WOW! I was going to suggest breathing deeply and exhaling completely a few times because that's what does the trick for me... even though I never knew why it worked, but it did... then I read the link above. That is so interesting. I'll try switching up the breathing pattern next time it happens.

Thanks! xx

Ab exercises! I have a tendency to get side stitches when I run and what really helped was strengthening my ab muscles. I still get them occasionally, but not nearly as much as I used to.

I did get one when I was running this weekend. I was trying to run six miles and really wanted to finish. The side stitch started in mile 1. For the first three miles, I toughed it out. I used my hand to press on the area where the pain was, which decreased the pain to a point where I could continue to run. If the pain got too bad, I walked until it diminished enough that I could run again. It was clear that strategy wasn't going to work for the second half of the run, so I tried something different and it did actually work. I was able to eliminate the side stitch for the remainder of the run. Here is what worked:

1. I stopped a rested after mile 3. Really, completely recovered from the first three miles. I even sat down for a little while. I made sure all the pain from the side stitch was completely gone before starting up again.
2. I did a few ab stretches (basically just stretching my hands above my head and reaching up as high as a I could), before I started running again.
3. When I started to run again, I concentrated on really sucking in my gut. I also concentrated on taking very deep, rhythmical breaths.
4. I slowed my pace down.

I could feel that the stitch was there, ready to flair up at a moment's inattention, but by concentrating on sucking in my abs and breathing deeply, and running a little slower than normal, I kept it at bay.

Also, I've found that being dehydrated triggers them for me. I suspect that's why I had a problem this weekend. I had a couple glasses of wine on both Friday and Saturday nights, which probably dehydrated me for my Sun morning run. So making sure you are properly hydrated might help too.