It is important to distinguish good muscle soreness with injury. It is also important to know what to do when your muscles are sore, do you continue to workout or rest until the pain subsides. If you experience no muscle soreness at all, this is a sign that you are body has adapted and you are achieving no results.
Muscle soreness is caused by micro trauma to the muscles. It is usually a good indicator that the workout you performed is effective.
When you first begin to exercise, your muscles will be extra sore, this is your body adjusting to the exercise and the soreness will subside. You need to perservere throughout the first few weeks. It is important not to confuse soreness with overtraining.
1. Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS)
This is a deep muscular soreness experienced two days after exercise. This is caused when you embark on an exercise programme for the first time or train a body part harder than usual. It will take at least a few days to a week to recover from this type of soreness.
The best thing to do is not rest but to exercise the affected body part in active recovery routine. Reduce weight and sets. Restore full movement in muscle and help remove lactic acid and other waste products building up in muscles.
This forces the high concentration of blood into damaged area of muscles and nourished muscles for repair and growth.
You will not be as sore the next day or stiff as you would if you skipped a workout in order to wait for the pain to subside.
2. Typical Mild Muscle
This is soreness that you experience after a good workout. This is caused by micro trauma to muscle fibre level and by excess lactic acid. This is a good soreness to experience as its mild in nature and muscle function is not impaired. Pain lasts usually a day. 3 days for a beginner. This indicates a good workout as you created trauma necessary to trigger muscle growth. When you no longer have this or experience this type of soreness the body is telling you it has adapted to the training program. This is not the goal you should be striving for as it leads to no gains.
3. Soreness caused by injury
This is an entirely different soreness. The main you experience here are sharp pain within your muscle or joints. Injuries often apparent as soon as they happen. RICE principle- Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation. If you are still sore consult a doctor.
It is important to warm up and stretch before and after your workout to reduce injuries.
Technique is also important to focus on if you don't have the right technique you will cause yourself injury. So practice good form first before moving to heavier weights.
