What causes calf pain after brisk walking?

Brisk walking is a common exercise in our lives and is very helpful for strengthening our body muscles. However, many friends have reported that after brisk walking, they found their calves very painful. What causes this? What exactly is going on? Today I will talk to you in detail about this aspect, let’s take a look!

People who do not exercise regularly will experience local muscle pain after strenuous exercise, which is related to the energy metabolism inside the muscles. Various forms of human body movement are mainly completed by muscle contraction. Muscle contraction requires energy, which is mainly provided by the decomposition of carbohydrates in muscle tissue.

In the presence of sufficient oxygen, such as when the human body is at rest, the carbohydrates in the muscles are directly broken down into carbon dioxide and water, releasing a large amount of energy. However, when the human body is engaged in strenuous activities, skeletal muscles urgently need a large amount of energy. Although respiratory movement and blood circulation are greatly enhanced at this time, they still cannot meet the muscle tissue's demand for oxygen, causing the muscles to be in a state of temporary hypoxia.

As a result, sugars break down into lactic acid, releasing relatively little energy. When lactic acid accumulates in the muscles, it stimulates the nerve endings in the muscle mass and produces a feeling of soreness. The accumulation of lactic acid increases the osmotic pressure in the muscles, causing the muscle tissue to absorb more water and produce local swelling.

For people who exercise regularly, their muscles can get more sufficient oxygen during exercise, and less lactic acid is produced by the breakdown of sugars, so there will be no obvious pain in the muscles. Therefore, you should exercise more often, do warm-up exercises before exercise, and do some muscle relaxing exercises after exercise to promote blood circulation, so that muscle pain can be relieved.

Experience: After exercise, before you feel pain, find someone to relax your muscles or relax yourself by massaging them in any way that makes you feel comfortable. This way you won’t feel as much pain the next day. When you feel pain the next day, you can "humiliate" yourself and endure the pain to do yesterday's exercises. After the exercise, you will find that it is not as painful anymore.

Through the editor’s sharing above, you have a certain understanding of the symptoms of calf pain after brisk walking. Then in future exercises, you must take protective and preventive measures to avoid calf pain caused by improper muscle movement. I hope everyone can remember this.