When working out on regular basis, we will come across muscle soreness. Although soreness may give you a feeling of accomplishment, however, it is not requirement. Soreness sometimes can be felt as pain, however, there is a difference between discomfort through soreness and pain through injuries. Whether it is soreness or injury, you want to know how you can take care of it so that you can get back into your activity.
Mechanism of Soreness
Why do we get sore after exercise or any physical activity? When the body is on a higher energy demand, the body needs to provide faster energy source, which is a glucose instead of fat. When the energy demand is even higher because of longer duration of exercise, higher volume of exercise, or the body is requiring more force production, then the body will convert glucose into lactic acid. In this conversion process is where the energy is generated. After this type of physical exertion, we feel fatigue and discomfort in the muscles. It is due hydrogen ion(H+) released from lactic acid (HLa). Then lactic acid converts into hydrogen ion(H+) and lactate (La-). Fatigue and discomfort are due to accumulation of hydrogen ion(H+) and not because of lactate.
When hydrogen ion increases in bloodstream the blood pH level become acidic. Therefore, increase in hydrogen ion can decrease both the contraction capacity of the muscle and force production by more than 50%. Therefore, when you are exercising hard and start feeling fatigue, you may also experience decline in strength for this reason.
Treating Soreness
Because of accumulation of hydrogen ion (H+) or blood becoming more acidic, to recover from soreness faster is by moving, hydrating and avoid consuming anything that are acidic.
Moving needs to be light intensity. This could be 15-20 minutes of light walk, very light intensity exercises, stretching and mobility work. Focus is to move the body to improve the blood flow and restore the elasticity of the muscles.
Hydration can help neutralize pH level in the blood. Normal blood pH level is 7.35 to 7.45, which is slightly more basic than neutral. Drinking water more than you normally would help bring the pH level back to the normal range. This process can be done immediately after the physical activity session.
Limit consuming acidic food or beverages can also help minimize the affect of soreness. Beer, wine, coffee, fruit juice, soda are all acidic and may not be suitable after the physical activity. There are certain food sources that you shouldn’t limit like protein sources but you can avoid highly processed and high sugar food sources.
Soreness and Injury
Typically, soreness may last for about 24-72 hours. From experience, if your soreness or discomfort is easing day by day, then you shouldn’t need to worry about it. However, if the soreness continues even longer, you may need to consider few things or may lead into overuse injury.
First is frequency of your activity relative to your current condition. This may happen to novice trainee or those who have been away from training or physical activities for few years. Because the body is not conditioned properly exercising 4-5 times per week may be a rough start. It is very important to give the body a time to recover. As mentioned earlier, the body may need about 72 hours to recover from the session. Therefore, for the first 3 months, it may be more beneficial to keep the exercise frequency to 2-3 time per week with 2-3 day in between. Train the body to build lactate and remove lactate by properly balancing out the sessions.
Second is overloading. Lifting heavy weight is beneficial to our health and performance. However, if the skill is not there the load you are using is too much for the joints, muscles and bones to be able to handle. Injuries happens because you are exerting the force above your capability. At any level, focus on skill of the exercise rather than working on how much you can lift. Mindset of heavy lifting should be how much you can lift with a proper technique. With this focus, you can perform the exercise without strain. If your physical activity is hiking check on, can you walk properly on flat surface should be the priority. If you are slouching, not able to use your hip properly, or not able to plant your feet as you step then eventually the injuries will happen due to movement compensation.
Third is vary your exercise. Performing same movement over and over again will eventually lead into overuse injury. Commonly around the joint areas including, lower back, shoulder, wrist, knees, ankles and so on. So instead of training total body every session, you may want to vary the routine by separating the body parts like upper body day and lower body day. It is also beneficial to change the exercises every few weeks.
Lastly, daily habits. Exercise alone will not lead to better health and performance. You will also need to monitor your food, sleep and stress management. This does not need to be perfect but need to be practiced so that 80% of the time you are working on it. Therefore, within 7 days, 5 days should be dedicated for improving your daily habits. By improving your daily habits, recovery from your physical activity and injury will be shortened.
Stay Away from Icing
When you feel like you have injury, something to avoid is icing even when the area is swollen. This may be opposite from what you may have learned, however, icing can slow down the healing process. When injured the body wants to send blood to the injured area as fast as possible. However, if you ice the process will get slow down and recovery may become longer. With said that, if the pain is uncomfortable for you to sleep icing can be used to minimize the discomfort.
Even if it is uncomfortable, move the area as much as you can handle. Movement may become small, but it will help remove the damaged tissues and open the blood flow pathway. You can also exercise the muscle or joints adjacent to the injured area to increase the blood flow. If you have lower back pain, for example, you can use quad or hip exercises not only to move the area but to mobilize to increase the blood flow. Since the focus is on increasing the blood flow, repetition needs to be high (15+ reps) with minimum load.
If you are not sure, it is always beneficial to check with your physician to identify what is happening to the injured area.
Kota Shimada
Comments