Two major causes of muscle pain during exercise

Many people like to do some outdoor sports during the holidays, such as running, mountain climbing, cycling and so on. However, if you exert too much force during exercise, or if you have not exercised for a long time, it can easily cause muscle pain. This phenomenon will become more obvious 1 to 2 days after exercise. So, is muscle pain during exercise normal? What are the causes of muscle pain during exercise?

Two situations that are prone to muscle soreness

Muscle soreness is a normal and positive physiological manifestation. After a new intensity or new exercise, there will often be obvious muscle soreness, which will disappear naturally after a few days. There are two main types of muscle soreness after exercise:

The most common situation occurs in people who lack exercise. After these people occasionally participate in exercise, they will experience general discomfort and muscle soreness. Therefore, we must develop the habit of regular exercise.

Another situation is that it also happens to people who often do equipment exercise in the gym. Due to the gradual increase in load and intensity of strength training, muscle soreness will occur during the delay period. This kind of muscle soreness is still the feeling pursued by many muscle-building enthusiasts. Generally speaking, muscle soreness is, to some extent, a sign that the corresponding muscles have been properly trained.

One of the causes of muscle soreness: lactic acid accumulation

Exercise and movement require energy. If the energy comes from aerobic metabolism in the cells, it is aerobic exercise; but if the energy comes from anaerobic glycolysis, it is anaerobic exercise. During aerobic exercise, glucose is metabolized into water and carbon dioxide, which can be excreted from the body through breathing; while during anaerobic exercise, glucose is fermented into a large amount of intermediate metabolites such as lactic acid, which cannot be excreted through breathing, resulting in lactic acid accumulation. Excessive lactic acid stimulates the muscles to increase osmotic pressure, causing the muscle tissue to absorb more water and produce local swelling, which will cause muscle soreness.

Lactic acid accumulation usually occurs in people who lack exercise, or when a muscle part that lacks exercise is suddenly exercised to a certain intensity. Junyu also has a deep understanding of this. Every time he starts playing badminton again after a period of time, his thigh and buttocks muscles will be extremely sore on the second or third day, because his thighs and buttocks are less frequently trained with equipment than other parts of the body.

As the frequency of fitness exercises increases, the accumulation of lactic acid after exercise will become less and less, and the degree will become lighter and lighter. So you should maintain the good habit of exercising.

The second reason for muscle soreness: muscle fiber connective tissue damage

For those who regularly exercise in the gym, they often experience muscle soreness. why is that? In fact, for this group of people, lactic acid accumulation is only one of the reasons. Another major reason is the slight damage to muscle fibers.

When we gradually increase the muscle training load, it will cause minor damage to local muscle fibers and connective tissue, and even cause spasms in some muscle fibers. But don't stress, this damage is acceptable and has positive muscle-building implications.

In fact, this kind of muscle fiber damage and spasm is local and microscopic. The muscles can still complete the movement function, but there is soreness. After the soreness, the muscle tissue becomes stronger than before after the local micro-damage in the muscle is repaired, and the same load will no longer cause damage (soreness) in the future. It is worth noting that this kind of repair requires rest and protein nutrition supplementation.

The above is an introduction to the two main causes of muscle pain during exercise. In fact, this phenomenon is normal. Slightly stretched muscle fiber injuries will cause muscle soreness, so you should proceed step by step during exercise and avoid over-exercising, otherwise you will suffer muscle strain and fail to achieve the purpose of exercise.