What to do with muscle soreness after heavy exercise?

Exercise has many benefits to physical health. For those who often lack exercise and suddenly do a lot of exercise, it is inevitable that they will feel muscle soreness in many parts of the body. At this time, some relatively simple methods can be used to relieve it. Let us learn about the methods that can be used to relieve muscle soreness after a lot of exercise.

There are two types of muscle soreness: one is soreness that occurs immediately after exercise, but disappears quickly, which is called acute muscle soreness; the other is soreness that does not occur immediately after exercise, but occurs several hours after exercise or even after a night's sleep, and disappears very slowly, taking two or three days to disappear. This type of soreness is called delayed onset muscle soreness. The reasons for their occurrence are not exactly the same.

Acute muscle soreness is often caused by strenuous exercise and insufficient oxygen supply, which causes a large accumulation of lactic acid in the muscles. Lactic acid is an acidic substance that can stimulate the nerve endings in the muscles and produce pain. In addition, the accumulation of lactic acid in the muscles will cause excessive local osmotic pressure, which will absorb water from the surrounding area and cause muscle edema. This swelling and irritation is also the cause of muscle soreness.

For this symptom, you should give yourself a light massage before going to bed on the night after exercise. Taking a hot bath can also have a certain effect (but soaking in hot water for too long will make your muscles tired and weak). These can speed up the body's metabolism, so that the lactic acid accumulated in the muscles is gradually transported away by the blood, and the muscle soreness will gradually disappear. If you don't treat it on the same day, you will inevitably have muscle soreness the next day. At this time, any treatment will be useless and you can only wait for it to recover on its own.

There is currently no consensus on the cause of delayed onset muscle soreness. Some people believe that it is because the muscle fibers are torn slightly after long-term exercise; others believe that it is because the muscle connective tissue is damaged to a certain extent. There is not much experimental material to confirm the above two theories. Muscle soreness caused by this reason can be relieved by doing some stretching exercises, massage or acupuncture.

Muscle soreness often indicates that your exercise level is not yet adapted to the current amount of exercise. If you persist and exercise regularly, when your body's functions are improved to a new level, you will adapt and similar amounts of exercise will not cause you to experience muscle soreness.

When you feel muscle soreness, it is best not to stop exercising immediately. You can adjust the intensity of the exercise appropriately and try to exercise every day. When the body adapts to the intensity of exercise, there will generally be no obvious discomfort. Of course, it is also very necessary to do a thorough warm-up before exercise.