Why Am I Sore After I Work Out?

Friday, November 27, 2009

Well congratulations to you first off for getting soar. Believe me it is a good thing. Here is why. The soreness that you are feeling is actually tiny tears in the muscles that have been created by working out intensely enough. This is a good thing because once the muscle is broken down then it will heal and regenerate more muscle fibers thus making the muscles bigger and stronger.

Here is how it works…when you exercise you are using your muscles to move and lift. As you start incorporating weights and increasing the amount of weight and keeping the intensity levels high then you are creating tiny tears to the muscle and are breaking it down. As the muscle tears you incorporate more muscle fibers to aid in the lift. After you are done exercising you may either later in the day or the following day feel very sore. This is known as Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS).

When you leave the gym and finish your exercising your body will regenerate the damaged muscle tissue and make it bigger. This happens with proper nutrition and rest. The muscles do NOT grow as you are lifting weights, they only grow when you are resting and healing. It usually takes about 72-96 hours before you can work the same muscle group again. This will ensure that it is getting ample rest and healing time.

DOMS pain is considered a result from a good workout. It shows that your intensity level what high enough to keep breaking down the muscles used so that they can regenerate and heal bigger. Eventually you will hit a plateau and the muscles will cease to break down. That is why it is important to constantly change up your routine, intensity, styles, resting times, etc so that the body does not know what to expect and the muscles will constantly be in a state of shock and will keep breaking down for more rebuilding.