Ever felt super sore the day after running, hiking, or throwing up some weights at the gym? You’re not alone. In fact, it’s common to feel stiffness and soreness begin to set in hours after strenuous or unaccustomed activity that can last for up to three days.
Popularly known as “delayed onset muscle soreness” (DOMS), it’s caused by movements where muscles lengthen under tension called eccentric contractions, such as downhill running, walking down stairs, slowly lowering weights, and plyometric exercises.
Luckily, there are techniques to prevent and relieve post-exercise soreness that are well established by science. What may surprise most people is accumulating research suggesting that muscles may not be the source of this common post-workout phenomenon.
Are problems with the muscles the source of post-workout soreness?
As the name implies, most theories attempting to explain DOMS attribute the symptoms to muscles. However, these theories have not been able to adequately link post-workout soreness to the muscles.
For example, one of the oldest theories focuses on the accumulation of lactic acid in the muscles during exercise as the source of post-workout soreness. It’s true that soreness can be a result of lactic acid build-up when muscles fatigue during intense exercise. The problem with this theory is that lactic acid levels quickly return to normal after physical activity is stopped, whereas post-workout soreness occurs with a delay and persists for days.
Another theory suggests that the post-workout soreness could result from damage of the muscles as a result of intense exercise. However, experiments that had participants perform eccentric exercises to induce post-workout soreness did not show a correlation between levels of soreness and levels of plasma creatine kinase, a marker of muscle damage in the blood.
3 Excerises to Help With Knee Pain
If not muscle, what structure could possibly be the source of post-exercise soreness?
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar