Dealing With Exercise Pain

Pain is the burning sensation you feel while trying to complete those last exercises, when certain muscle aches at the point of exertion – an uncomfortable declaration that you are conditioning our body. You also experience muscle soreness a day or two after a workout.

This is called good pain. It dissipates shortly after you stop doing the exercise. It is triggered by a build-up of lactic acid, and you may be experiencing it now because you’ve recently increased the weight or number of repetitions for a certain exercise. 

Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) of the latter are your body’s response to microscopic tears in the muscle fibers. The tears and corresponding inflammation cause the pain. This process of breakdown and repair is how your muscles become stronger.

These two types of pain should be expected, even desired, if your goal is to strengthen your muscles and increase your level of fitness. The best way to deal with them is:

• To warm up gradually and go a little lighter on your workout if you’re experiencing delayed onset muscle soreness.
• To stop, rest briefly and breathe deeply to replenish the working muscles’ supply of oxygen if you’re experiencing burning fatigue from a build-up of lactic acid.

Pain caused by injury is bad news. Injuries can be acute, as with the sudden twisting of an ankle; or they may be chronic, as with stress fracture or tendontitis that has escalated over time. Do not push through the pain because it may cause permanent damage.

At the onset of an injury, apply RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation). This is an excellent time to cross-train, as long as the new activities don’t aggravate your injury.

• Stretch. It is most effective when your muscles are warm. Working muscles shorten, which leads to injury unless you do something to maintain your flexibility. Always warm up and perform stretching exercises for all the major muscles and any other s that you use during your workout.
• Give yourself adequate recovery time between workout. Chronic injuries are usually caused by overuse. 
• Increase the frequency and duration of your workouts slowly. Your cardiovascular system usually shapes up faster than your musculoskeletal system. In other words, your lungs may be ready to run an extra 10 miles during the week, but your bones and tendons probably aren’t.
• Cross-train. Doing a variety of exercise activities, spread the workload around the challenged muscles you may not be using in your primary fitness activity. One low-or non-impact workout per week is really good.
• Look after susceptible areas, such as ankles, knees, shoulders, elbows, low back. Take the time to strengthen the muscles, ligaments and tendons that support these areas.