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Muscle movement
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A few days of muscle soreness is what every weight trainer may have to put up with initially
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SORE MUSCLES can hurt like hell. Just ask anybody in his first week of weight training.
The first week in a gym is usually the most painful. Every day one wakes up with a different body part insisting on staying fixed in a contracted position and refusing to relax. Even the smallest of everyday tasks, like reaching for the TV remote while lying on the couch, elicits winces and groans.
The few days of agony is a rite of passage that all who want to do weight-training must go through, but it also raises the question of whether one should be exercising with sore muscles. There is no easy answer to this question.
Muscle soreness results from raised lactic acid levels, a metabolite formed when muscles contract in the absence of adequate oxygen-as in intense weight-training. Normally the body is adept at washing out lactic acid when muscle cells produce it in the usual amounts. However, an unaccustomed increase in the intensity, duration or frequency of exercise causes the build up of more lactic acid than the body can process immediately. This is typically what happens when the weekend walker turns into a gym enthusiast overnight after watching Conan, The Barbarian.
Muscle metabolism
The build up of lactic acid in a seasoned weight lifter disappears after a few minutes because that is all it takes for the body to catch up with muscle metabolism. Resting for a few minutes in between sets is for a similar reason.
An extraordinary rise in lactic acid, as in a new army recruit or a gym beginner, takes longer to come down. Aerobic training does not usually cause lactic acid build up, unless it is unaccustomed or involves something like marathon running, but it forces the body to become more adept at handling lactic acid by increasing blood flow to muscles and by increasing cardiovascular capacity.
One cannot completely eliminate muscle soreness in the gym beginner, but there are a few ways of minimising it:
Do a few weeks of aerobic training - walking, jogging, and swimming before picking up a dumbbell. Increase exercise loads gradually: this will prevent the microscopic muscle tears that cause severe muscle soreness. Design your exercise schedule such that you do not exercise the same body part on consecutive days.
Treat the sore part with ice water and over-the-counter analgesics.
Never exercise while suffering severe pain. If the pain is more intense than what you experience after walking an extra mile, it is better to rest on that day rather than risk further injury.
RAJIV. M
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