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Muscle Soreness
What is
muscle soreness? It is
a muscle tear, actually thousands of minor
micro fiber muscle tears in the muscle previously worked out.
Sometimes the soreness occurs during the
workout or after the
workout. When it occurs after your workout, not just an hour or two
later, but the next day, the sore muscle
proceeds to be even more sore than the previous day then it is
classified as Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness.
You
can limit or prevent muscle soreness by
warming up the muscle you plan to exercise. To even further prevent it
you should do a warm up set with a light weight also. After you have
finished the exercises when you are at home and relaxed, elevating the
muscle may help remove the lactic acid buildup and therefore reduce
the soreness you will eventually have.
Here is a really basic illustration of what happens to the muscles
during a weight lifting routine, but it helps you visualize
what actually happens to each muscle...
Picture of right leg and right side of the
thigh muscle
Side
view of picture above, actual muscle
fiber in the thigh, extreme
zoom
Thigh muscle after a thigh
muscle
exercise or leg / thigh
workout. Along the muscle fiber you can see tiny micro tears in the
thigh muscle, thus creating muscle soreness.
During the next phase, protein from the blood then fills in these
micro tears... after that process you are just a little bit bigger and
stronger.
Sore muscle treatment
The
best way to avoid having to treat you're muscles if you feel necessary
is to try and prevent it or limit it beforehand by using the
techniques mentioned above. Muscle soreness in my eyes is a good
thing, it is a sign of a good, solid workout.
Treatment options include
heat
therapy and moist heat
therapy ( Place a heated pad on the sore muscle and leave for 10
minutes, 2 or 3 cycles of this may help reduce the soreness. ) Also
Ice cubes may be used to help remove the lactic
acid buildup, often times swelling can occur from the sore muscle
and ice cubes will help reduce this problem.
A
combination of these will help flush out the muscles by doing a cycle
of heat therapy, then ice therapy and repeat as you feel is necessary.
Stretching and massaging are other methods used in the sore muscle
treatment. Experiments regarding the effects of a massage resulted
that it did help... but there was insufficient data to make this
experimental point a fact.
Ibuprofen, Advil or Tylenol may be taken to temporarily relieve pain.
If extended soreness occurs read the
DOMS article and consider
consulting a doctor / physician.
Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness
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