Muscle Pain after Exercise


The pain in the muscles after training (also known as muscle strength or muscle cramps) is familiar to both beginners and experienced athletes. She comes within a couple of days after a grueling session. Movements become painful, "clogged" muscles slightly swell and harden.


Beginners are usually frightened of the strength and seek to quickly remove the unpleasant sensations. People who have long been engaged in fitness, are accustomed to associate pain with progress in training and can experience because of her absence.

If in sports classes for you is important not only the process, but the result, with muscle pain after training will have to make friends. To do this, you need to understand why it arises, what sensations are considered normal, and what you need to do to ease your strength.


Why muscles ache


Scientific studies of the causes of the krepature offer several hypotheses. The most popular explanation of this phenomenon is associated with lactic acid, which accumulates in working muscles: about 20 years ago this view was considered to be the only correct one, but modern research refutes it.


The Swiss specialists Danneker and Coltin published a work on the health in 2014, in which the articles of medical workers and coaches were analyzed. Scientists measured the concentration of lactic acid in the muscles of people who performed exercises with varying intensity and duration. It turned out that some types of physical activity are accompanied by a slight secretion of lactic acid neck muscle pain, but after them anyway there comes a strong krepature. For example, you can lead to a mountain uphill.


Australian professor Ken Nosaka believes that muscle pain arises from eccentric movements. These are movements in which the muscles contract and contract simultaneously. Try to follow the muscles of your legs when you go down the stairs or slowly crouch down on a chair, and you will understand what is at stake.
When the muscle eccentrically contracts several times in a row, muscle cells are damaged. The organism, defending itself against the unusual load, responds to microtraumas of the muscles with an inflammatory process and the activation of immune cells. As a result, pain and swelling appear, which go away as the micro-injuries heal.


Sensations after exercise


Severe muscle pain after exercise is not always a harmless phenomenon: perhaps, instead of strengthening, muscle tissue is destroyed. Normal shaking occurs in the first 6-12 hours after an unusual load, reaches its peak between 24 and 72 hours, and then gradually goes away. Usually, the pain disappears completely seven days after exercise.


If the pain in the muscles after exercise appears late (on the second or third day) and lasts for more than a week, you need to reduce the intensity of the load.


Sometimes it is confused with other types of muscle pain. Symptoms of possible injury or muscle disease:


  • pain that occurs without a cause;
  • pain, increasing every day, pain in the legs after jogging
  • "Shooting" pain;
  • pain caused by movements of the spine;
  • pain, combined with unpleasant sensations in the joint (crackling, difficulty and painful movements);
  • pain that does not pass for a long time (more than a week);
  • pronounced swelling and redness on the skin.


If such symptoms occur, do not try to remove muscle pain yourself, but consult a doctor.


Preventive maintenance Valium


To reduce the pain in the muscles after training, you need to properly prepare for the load.


Do not forget about the three main principles, without which sports progress is impossible - regularity, accessibility and gradualness.

The principle of regularity is that the body needs to rest, but let it relax for too long.


The ideal interval between sessions is 48 hours. If you do not have time to relieve muscle pain after training for this period, you do not need to hammer inflamed muscles again - do low-intensity exercises that will improve blood circulation in muscle tissues and speed up the healing process.


Warm-up before training


Accessibility means that you need to soberly assess your capabilities and not take on exhaustive training programs.

Graduality implies that you will gradually increase the intensity of the activity, focusing on the reaction of your body.

If the muscles ache after the first workout - let them recover or exercise on those muscle groups that were not involved in the last time.

Warm-up before classes and stretching after strength exercises do not help to get rid of muscle pain after training, but thanks to them discomfort will become less pronounced. The warm-up will be most effective, if you before each exercise knead that group of muscles, which will load.

You do not have to skip classes because of the strength calf muscle pain, if you distribute the strength exercises to different muscle groups by the days of the week. For example, on Monday - legs, on Wednesday - press, on Friday - back, and so on.


Ways to relieve pain


The most popular and affordable way to help your clogged muscles is to increase blood circulation in them. There are many options:


  • massage;
  • cold compresses;
  • shower with alternating hot and cold water;
  • a warm bath with sea salt or mustard;
  • application of a warming-up ointment;
  • active leisure (running, cycling, dancing and others).


Pain in the muscles after training can also be removed with the help of anti-inflammatory drugs. We recommend that you try non-steroidal preparations in the form of ointments, for example, Fastum gel or Ibuprofen.


Many athletes have their own, individual way to get rid of the krepature - someone is helped by coffee, someone has ascorbic acid or aspirin. With severe pain, local muscle relaxants are used, but such medications should be prescribed by a doctor.


All these methods will help you relieve muscle pain after training neck muscle pain. Remember that it is much easier to prevent the shaking than to cure it.
If after a session life turns into a nightmare, legs do not move, and hands do not hold a cup of tea - this is a serious reason to review your sports program. However, moderate strength can be your best assistant in the class, because it allows you to track how correctly and intensively you perform the exercises.