Can you exercise with sourdoughs? Or maybe for your own he alth it is better to give up training at this time? When to start the next training, when our muscles are in pain? Find out if you can exercise with soreness and how exercise affects your muscles in pain.
Can you exercise with soreness?To answer this question, first you need to explain what sourdough is. Colloquial soreness is muscle pain that occurs two or more days after training. Sometimes it is so intense that it makes it difficult or even impossible for us to perform everyday activities: sitting down, climbing stairs, lifting our arms.
There are twotheories about how soreness develops. The first one says that it is caused by a large accumulation of lactic acid (hence the name "soreness") in the muscles. This situation occurs during intense training and performing a series of exercises with many repetitions, e.g. when rowing with a barbell, climbing on toes or training the biceps. It is worth noting, however, that these processes cause the so-called early soreness, caused by irritation of the sensory nerves that we feel during training, and not a day or a few days after it. Lactic acid is involved in the process of gluconeogenesis and is used up within about 2 hours of training. Pain caused by biochemical changes in the body, including the activity of lactic acid, may appear, but it is not what we have assumed to be called sourdoughs (or they are the actual soreness, and the pain felt a few days after training should be called differently).
The more and more often we exercise, the less likely it is to develop sore muscles after the next training session.
What pain are we talking about? ODOMS(Eng.delayed onset muscle soreness ), i.e. delayed muscle pain syndrome, and less officially - microdamages of muscle fibers. These ailments appear 24-72 hours after exercise - the pain occurs during the regeneration of fibers, which rebuild stronger and stronger, enabling continuous training progress.
So can the saying: "soreness is a sign of the onset of mass" be called true and should one be proud of it - as a sign of effective training? It depends. As Jon Mike explains1 ,Physical Education Lecturer at the University of New Mexico, pain 2-3 days after training is needed because protein production and muscle growth are stimulated during this time. However, if after 2-3 days we are not able to perform the same activities that the soreness caused, it means that we have exaggerated and overestimated our strength.
See also: What to eat before and after training to regenerate muscles?
Can you exercise with soreness?
- Can I exercise if I have very strong sore muscles and I have pain almost all over my body?Answer: NO
Definitely not. Even if we want to train those parts of the body where we do not feel pain. If soreness makes us almost unable to move, the only good solution is to give up training for 2-3 days. It is also worth remembering that if the pain does not disappear after 72-96 hours, muscle swelling appears, you need to see a doctor.
- I have light soreness. Can I exercise those muscles that are strained and hurt?Answer: NO.
It is not advisable to exercise those parts of the body where we feel pain. You need to give your muscles the time they need to recover and strengthen themselves, not weaken them again when they have not yet recovered. Therefore, you have to wait until you stop feeling pain before training those parts of the body that are suffering from pain.
- I have light soreness. Can I exercise the muscles that do not hurt me?Answer: YES, but not intensely.
The situation is completely different when, having light soreness, we do not want to completely give up physical activity, but also want to avoid straining tired muscles. The American College of Sports Medicine recommends2to exercise slowly to other parts of the body during this time. So, for example - if you did upper body training the day before, you can go for a run the next day, but do not exert yourself. Recreational activities are recommended, e.g. bicycle, walks, swimming pool (water will additionally loosen tense muscles).
Worth knowingHow do I prevent the appearance of soreness?
To prevent soreness from appearing, remember to warm up before training and stretch after training. Do each of these training elements for at least 10 minutes. Ideally, the warm-up should consist of aerobic exercise, without any additional weight (exercises with your own body weight are allowed). Also, remember to adjust the intensity of exercise to the strength of your muscles and do not make demands on yourself that you are not able to at a given stageto cope with. Also pay attention to the correctness of the exercises - maybe the pain was aggravated by an incorrect technique. Set up your training plan to give specific muscle groups time to recover.
What exercises can help speed up your sore muscles?
As soreness usually occurs when we just start exercising or when we return to activity after a long break, it is best to deal with them with physical activity. Recreational activities will be perfect: swimming pool, jogging, walking. You can do a light endurance training, for example by going for a 30-minute bike ride.
There are two contradictory theories about sore stretch: some trainers say it causes more pain and damage to your muscles, while others recommend stretching but using gentle and slow movements, such as static stretching. This is to improve the supply of nutrients to the muscles and soothe their pain. It's best to check for yourself if stretching can help you.
How does exercise during sore muscles affect your muscles?
In order to answer the question of how exercise during muscle soreness affects the muscles, we need to describe the entire mechanism of their formation.
Skeletal muscles are responsible for our movements. Muscles are made of muscle tissue, and the smallest component of a muscle is a muscle fiber. During exercise, especially with heavy loads, there is micro-damage to the muscle fibers. The isometric contractions we perform (increasing the muscle tension without changing its length) and eccentric contractions (stretching the muscle despite the force it produces) cause greater muscle damage than concentric contractions, i.e. those when during contraction the muscle is shortened and its tension increases at the same time . Damage to muscle fibers stimulates pain neurons, causing post-training pain in exercised muscles.
When we do exercises during sore muscles, instead of rebuilding, the muscle fibers become even more damaged and do not have time to rebuild.It may also happen that as a result of exercising with with soreness, we will break the previously torn muscle (of course, it can also happen during any training), which is manifested by even more intense pain, swelling and a decrease in muscle strength.
Interestingly, every person has a constant number of muscle fibers throughout his life, so he can "only" work on increasing their circumference.
Worth knowingDoes alcohol help with soreness?
Quite a lotThe thesis that alcohol is the best remedy for soreness is popular. Its supporters claim that ethanol is supposed to contribute to faster removal of lactic acid accumulated in the muscles. Except that lactic acid clears itself from the muscles after 1-2 hours, and it is not the cause of DOMS. It is known that alcohol intensifies the secretion of cortisol - a hormone which is one of the factors causing muscle breakdown. What's more, it lowers, albeit slightly, testosterone levels, which in turn is used to build muscle.
Sources:
1. Information available at: http://dailyburn.com/life/fitness/doms-muscle-soreness/
2. Access to information at: http://www.acsm.org/docs/brochures/delayed-onset-muscle-soreness-(doms).pdf?sfvrsn=2