Everyone knows a simple truth - playing sports strengthens health and helps to maintain and maintain a healthy figure. So why do muscles ache so often after long workouts?
For many years, it has been believed that the main cause of muscle pain after exercise is the formation of lactic acid. This acid is a byproduct of the physiological processes that take place in the muscles during exercise. Gradually, its amount accumulates and eventually becomes so much that pain receptors are "burned" as a result of its action. The athlete feels a burning sensation in the tired muscle. By itself, lactic acid does not harm the body, and even entering the general bloodstream leads to rejuvenation of the body. However, there is another type of muscle pain. This is the so-called delayed muscle pain (LMP). It arises because during training myofibrils burst - the thinnest muscle fibers. After a few days, they begin to lose their shape, and the lysosomes completely destroy the remains. On the fragments of myofibril molecules there is a large number of charges and radicals, with which water is attached. As a result, the cell becomes dehydrated and begins to attract water from the surrounding tissues. The muscle "swells". The lexicon of athletes even uses such a concept as "muscle clogging." It was at this moment, i.e. a few days after training, a person feels severe muscle pain. Painful sensations disappear when the process of destruction is finally completed. The harm of intense training for an untrained person is the need to rebuild muscle fibers. The muscles of a person who does sports irregularly consist of fibers of various lengths. Shorter ones are torn at the moment of loads. With regular exercise, the length of the myofibrils is gradually leveled out, and the athlete no longer feels sharp severe pain. This mechanism of muscle pain, described above, should not be confused with trauma - rupture of muscle fibers. Because the cause of pain after exercise lies in the processes occurring at the molecular and cellular level, and it involves myofibrils - the thinnest components of muscle fibers.
