Muscle pain is a common companion for beginners and experienced athletes. Most often, it comes the next day after training and is the response of muscle tissue to an increase in the usual load.
Painful muscle discomfort after a strenuous workout is not uncommon, even if you have been playing sports for a long time. For beginners, even minor exertion can cause pain, and often they experience unpleasant sensations immediately after the first training session. For experienced athletes, such pain often becomes a response to increasing loads. Muscle pain is caused by lactic acid, which is a by-product of the body's processes and accumulates in muscle tissue as a result of intense stress. The concentration of lactic acid increases in proportion to the increase in load. That is why on the last approaches of any exercise, when the tension becomes maximum, the athlete feels a burning sensation in the muscles.
There is also delayed muscle pain caused by microtrauma to muscle tissue. Micro-tears in muscles are also the result of unusual loads. In particular, they can occur after changing the training program or as a result of overly intense training after a long break. Subsequently, muscle tissue is restored - as a result of the release of hormones and protein synthesis, muscle fibers are regenerated, and the volume of muscles increases. That is why the famous sports motto sounds like "No pain - no gain!" (no pain - no growth). Painful sensations are proof that the training was not in vain, and the muscles received the necessary load to grow and increase strength.
Do I need to fight pain?
Pain after exercise is not dangerous to health and most often go away on its own. However, if they cause too much discomfort, warming up procedures are allowed - bath, sauna, warm bath with sea salt, relaxing massage. Stretching also helps improve the condition of damaged muscle tissue. Stretching muscles and ligaments is recommended before each workout during warm-up, as well as stretching after exertion - this is an excellent prevention of muscle pain and promotes the speedy regeneration of damaged tissue.
It is not recommended to continue intensive training despite the pain. This could result in serious injury. Do not overload a muscle that has not yet had time to recover - this is harmful to health and hinders progress. Nevertheless, it is not worth giving up the load altogether. You just need to choose exercises that will be gentle on overworked muscles, and not use limiting weights.
