Have you ever rolled over in the morning and felt so stiff you could hardly reach the alarm clock? It’s a pretty common phenomenon we’ve all experienced after a particularly arduous physical workout whether it was helping a friend move or taking the kids out for an extended day at the water park or just pushing that extra set in the gym. It’s called delayed muscle soreness and for many it’s a huge turn off from exercising. After all, if they feel worse after doing it – why would they do it?
If you understand what causes sore muscles, you can learn how to avoid having sore muscles. When it comes to delayed muscle soreness there are two types of exercise related pains you will experience. The first is an immediate type of soreness that happens while you are exercising or that you feel just as you finish your last rep or set on an exercise machine whether it is weights or cardio.
The second type of soreness is known as delayed muscle soreness and it happens due to a naturally adaptive process that your body will begin after intense exercise. Essentially you will feel the soreness about 24 to 48 hours after the exercise and it will last for a day or so.
There are a lot of theories about what causes the delayed muscle soreness but there is current research and school of thought that attributes it to microscopic tears in the muscle and surrounding connective tissue. People who may experience this type of muscle soreness includes beginning exercises, persons who have exercised moderately but experienced a lapse of some kind and even professional athletes and fitness gurus who participate in an activity that is not typical for them.
Some of the best treatments to alleviate your delayed muscle soreness include applying ice, taking nonsteroidal anti inflammatory drugs (ibuprofen & acetaminophen) stretching, massage and others can help if done very quickly after the exercise or activity.
Interestingly enough, if you get delayed muscle soreness from an exercise or activity at certain intensity, you usually won’t experience it again at those same activities unless you increase beyond that intensity level. This is part of your body’s adaptive sill to condition muscles to stress and exercise intensity.
So what does this really mean for you? It means that if you enjoy a good workout, you should build it up slowly and evenly. You should never power increase your intensity levels unless you are prepared for the soreness you will have. You should make changes to your workout gradually and allow it to adapt to those changes over time rather than becoming extremely overzealous and causing themselves harm.