 Many people confuse soreness with pain, but the two are very, very different. Soreness is more of a dull, slightly uncomfortable ache in your muscle, while pain is a very uncomfortable or sometimes sharp sensation in your bones, joints, or sometimes your muscles. While some muscle soreness is normal, pain is not. If you feel pain at any point during your workout, it is essential that you stop what you are doing. If you experience sudden pain, severe pain, swelling, extreme tenderness, extreme weakness in a limb, inability to place weight on a leg or foot, inability to move a joint through its full range of motion, visible dislocation or broken bone, numbness or tingling you should see a healthcare professional right away. 5 Types of Muscle Soreness Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness Called DOMS for short, this is the soreness you're probably most familiar with. It's what you feel when you get out of bed the next morning after a tough workout. This type of muscle soreness begins 24 to 48 hours after your workout and actually indicates a natural adaptive process that the body uses after an intense exercise session. When you do a new or particularly challenging workout, your muscle fibers tear on a microscopic level. It takes time for your body to repair that muscle, which is why you may feel this type of lingering soreness for up to 72 hours after that hard workout. Sometimes, you may even feel sorer on the second or third day after your tough workout than you did on the first. The good news? Once you get through this bout of soreness, that same activity shouldn't make you that sore (or sore at all) because your muscles will have gotten stronger and will be better able to handle that particular challenge. How to prevent it: For a long time, fitness professionals believed that stretching would prevent DOMS, but current research is mixed on that. Stretching is great for a myriad of reasons, and you should continue to stretch and properly cool down, which is also believed to help prevent DOMS. But when it comes to avoiding DOMS entirely, your best bet is to progress slowly and steadily into your exercise program so that your muscles are gradually challenged and can build over time.Long-Term Muscle Soreness Sometimes you might be sore for longer than 72 hours after a workout. If you are, this probably means that you really pushed yourself, did a completely new activity, or haven't exercised in a long time. This muscular soreness feels much like DOMS, just more severe, and indicates that your body needs additional time to repair those muscles. How to prevent it: Like DOMS, prevention comes by slowly easing into your workout frequency, intensity and duration.Muscle Cramps At one time or another, you've probably experienced a muscle cramp in your calf, foot or hamstring. Muscle cramps are basically sudden, involuntary contractions or spasms. They most commonly occur after exercise or at night and can last from a few seconds to several minutes. Muscle cramps can be caused by nerves that malfunction due to a health problem such as a spinal cord injury or a pinched nerve in the neck or back. Most muscle cramps have far less concerning causes like straining or overusing a muscle, dehydration, a lack of minerals in your diet, a depletion of minerals in your body, or low blood flow to your working muscles. How to prevent it: Eating a healthy, nutritious diet and taking a multivitamin can help, as can making sure you're drinking enough water. Regular stretching and not overdoing it in your workouts will help prevent muscle cramps as well. Replacing lost electrolytes during prolonged (greater then 90 minutes) workout sessions is also helpful.Unexplained Aches Ever have a great workout and then the next day you're sore in an area that you didn't really work? Or perhaps you are in the middle of a workout and are noticing pain or burning in muscles that shouldn't be feeling the particular exercise, such as your lower back aching while doing an abs exercise. This may be a sign of improper form when lifting weights or performing an exercise. Unexplained aches in your back and neck, or general joint pain, can be signs that you have overstressed your joints or exercised in poor form, causing your body to overcompensate and recruit other muscles to help do the work. How to prevent it: Always make sure that you're exercising with perfect form. If you can't perform an exercise with proper form, it's a sign that you either need to decrease your weight or modify the exercise.Burning Sensations in Muscles When people say "no pain, no gain" in the gym, the pain they're talking about is actually the burn you feel in your muscles when you really push into and past fatigue. (As you've already learned, real pain is no gain to anyone.) This burn is an unpleasant—but normal—sign that you are working. See, when our muscles use energy, they release hydrogen ions or protons. When doing heavy or prolonged exercise, the protons in your muscles actually accumulate faster than your body can release them, making your muscles burn. This burn is a sign that you've reached muscular fatigue or "overload," which is a necessity if you hope to build stronger muscles. How to prevent it: You can prevent this by working out at a lower-intensity, although every few days it's good to "feel the burn" because you know that you're really working those muscles in a way that will help them get stronger! Sources: Active Recovery, from About.com: Sports Medicine Don’t Be a Sore Loser - Dealing with Muscle Soreness, from ACEFitness.org Muscle Cramps, from U.S. National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health Muscle Pain and Soreness, from About.com: Walking Muscle Pain and Soreness After Exercise - What Is Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness, from About.com Sports Medicine Sore muscles after exercising, from ScienceDaily.com Sore Muscles? Don't Stop Exercising, from WebMD.com Stretching Out Does Not Prevent Soreness After Exercise, from ScienceDaily.com What Makes Muscles Burn?, from Prevention Magazine Article created on: 11/9/2010 |
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