"My legs and shoulders feel so heavy I have a hard time lifting them. I'm going to take the day off."
Common words after a intense interval training session on the mountain bike or a hard session in the weight room.
Why? What makes muscles sore and stiff? How could your body let you down like this? You, who works out in the gym several hours per week and had plenty of miles in your legs, should not feel any pain. You, who up until this point, always believed your body could take any punishment and your muscle tone was excellent.Whatever you did, you did too much, too soon. Now it's the day after and you have athletic hangover. You are experiencing muscle soreness.
Causes of your post-exercise soreness vary from overuse to minor strains to your individual muscle fibers. Despite what your high school coach may have told you, the culprit is not lactic acid. Lactic acid build-up has been blamed for prolonged muscle fatigue and discomfort; however, this concept is not widely accepted today.
Lactic acid is produced during intense levels of exercise when the oxygen demands of the muscle fibers increase beyond what the blood is capable of delivering. To produce the energy needed, the body begins another process, which works in the absence of oxygen. Lactic acid�a byproduct of this process�locks up your muscles, and because it is an acid it causes your muscles to experience that burning sensation.
But lactic acid is completely washed out of the muscles within 30 to 60 minutes after you finish riding. Since muscle soreness does not show up until 24 to 36 hours later, scientists have been exercising their brains to come up with another explanation.
Currently, the most popular theory is that when you overdue your cycling, skiing or weight work, you cause "microtrauma" to the muscle fibers�localized damage to the muscle fiber membranes and contractile elements.
Over the 24 hours, the damaged muscle becomes swollen and sore. Chemical irritants are released from the damaged muscles and can irritate pain receptors. In addition to the injured fibers, there is increased blood flow from increased activity to the muscle, causing a swelling of the muscle tissues, which causes enough pressure to stimulate pain receptors. Instead of having free-moving muscle fibers the next morning, you have fibers that are fatigued, have microscopic tears and are swollen.
Whatever the precise mechanism, current scientific research points toward muscle damage as the culprit of muscle soreness. The nerve supply to the muscles perceive this abnormal state and send messages of pain to your brain as soon as you move them the next morning.
By moving the sore muscles, you gradually begin to restore them to a normal state, but you will not be able to exercise to your full potential, because the damaged muscles have lost some strength.
Typical recommendations for short-term treatments include stretching, topical application of sports balms, creams, and submersion in a hot tub or time in a sauna. Some athletes also turn to aspirin and anti-inflammatory medication to reduce the pain and inflammation.
The cure for muscle soreness is relatively simple: If you gradually increase the strength and endurance of your muscles and you stretch and warm up properly before the activity you will be engaging in, they will not get as sore.
Remember that cycling uses certain muscles that are not used regularly in your daily life. It all comes down to something called specificity of training, where your muscles, tendons and ligaments adapt to a particular sport, activity or movement pattern over a period of time.
In addition, as we grow older, our muscles and surrounding tissues also have less elasticity, so we tend to feel soreness and tightness more quickly than we did in high school. An individual who stays in shape throughout the year�even athletes in their 30s and 40s�should be able to exercise with minimal muscular soreness.
After a very hard day on the bike or in the weight room, you may feel somewhat stiff, but with a little stretching and proper warm-up, this feeling should go away quickly.
Sore muscles are usually damaged muscles. As with any injury, sore muscles must be given time to heal. This may require a few easy days of cycling, or another light workout. After a few days you can begin to push harder again.
But don't go too hard or too fast, because you'll wind up back on the sidelines again. Remember, the best way to prevent or reduce muscle damage is prior physical conditioning.