Find out why after a hard workout, muscle soreness overtakes you after 24 hours and when you can train again. If you have been involved in sports before, then you are well aware of the pain in the muscles after training. People who have just started to exercise often have a question, why do muscles hurt a day after training? It is to him that we will try today to answer, at the same time finding out whether this is good or bad. To begin with, the pain sensations can differ from each other: light and not causing discomfort, or very strong and it is difficult for you to even move your limbs. Depending on the strength of the painful sensations, we can talk about the reasons for their appearance.
Causes of mild muscle pain
These pains usually appear immediately after the completion of the training. In this case, it is worth focusing on the word "immediately", since this is a very fundamental point. The cells of all tissues of the body receive energy due to the process of aerobic glycolysis, which is impossible without the participation of oxygen.
However, during strength training, the body uses a different process to obtain energy - anaerobic glycolysis. As you already understood, for this process to proceed, the body does not need oxygen. The main metabolite of anaerobic glycolysis is lactic acid. Since muscle tissue contracts during lifting weights, this leads to constriction of the blood vessels.
As a result, lactic acid cannot be excreted and is retained in the tissues. It is this substance that causes the burning sensation that the athlete feels after completing the workout. It is quite obvious that the amount of lactic acid directly depends on the intensity of the exercise. The more actively you worked on your muscles. The more intense burning sensation you will experience. To quickly remove the metabolite, stretching exercises should be performed after training, thereby restoring blood flow in the muscle tissues.
You should also remember that as soon as a sufficient amount of blood began to flow into the muscles, then lactic acid is excreted in a short time. Thus, the answer to the question of why muscles hurt a day after training is clearly not a metabolite of anaerobic glycolysis. Although many novice athletes are convinced of the opposite, that is not true. Already 60 minutes after completing a workout of even the highest intensity, no trace of lactic acid remains in the muscle tissues. Thus, if you want to find out why the muscles hurt the day after training, then the answer should be sought in other reasons.
Moderate pain one day after exercise
After a high-quality class, the next day, and sometimes on the day of training in the late afternoon, pain of a different kind appears. Most often, these pains are mild, although they can be quite severe. Their presence can tell you that the muscle tissue has received serious microdamage, which suggests high-quality training. If, after your workouts, you often experience moderate pain the next day, then the muscles have been well loaded and the body is proceeding to restore them.
Let's look at the process of occurrence of such painful sensations. When the fibers receive microdamages, then blood gets into them, which continues to be there until the moment of excretion and restoration. On average, this process takes two to three days. As a result, scars form on the fibers at the sites of damage, which increase muscle mass.
You probably already understood for yourself that during these two or three days the muscles should not be loaded, but it is necessary to give them the opportunity to fully recover. If you put the muscles back under the load, preventing them from completely healed, then talking about gaining mass is meaningless. For this reason, there is a recommendation to train each muscle group about once a week.
If you train easily, then again there is no need to talk about gaining mass. In such a situation, you can only get rid of excess fat and maintain muscle tone. In this mode, you can even train every day, since the body does not experience powerful stress. However, you need to learn to listen to your body, which prompts. When to pause your studies.
Delayed pain sensation after exercise
So we come to the moment when the answer will be received to the question of why the muscles hurt a day after training. Note that delayed pain sensations are characteristic not only of novice athletes, but also experienced ones. Most often they appear one or two days after the completion of the training.
The reason for the appearance of such painful sensations is a signal from the body that it has not previously experienced such a serious physical stress. Here are some of the main reasons for delayed pain sensations:
- The training program was changed.
- The duration or intensity of the session has changed.
- The training was resumed after a long break.
- You have just started practicing.
These reasons explain why the muscles hurt the day after training. As we already said, such painful sensations are inherent even to experienced athletes, and you should not worry about them. The types of pain in the muscles we have considered now after exercise do not carry a negative for the body and can only be regarded from the positive side.
Muscle pain caused by overtraining
However, not all painful sensations should be regarded as positive. They can also be a signal to the body that negative processes are taking place in it. At the beginning of the article, we talked about microdamages that muscle fibers receive during intense training. We also said that you need to give your body time to heal in order to heal these micro-fractures.
This not only allows the muscles to grow, but also helps to restore the strength that was expended in excess in training. If you train often at high intensity, you will quickly find out what overtraining is.
First, you will feel general weakness, physical parameters will begin to fall, and then pain will appear. These are the symptoms of overtraining, which experienced athletes try to avoid with all their might. After 60 or 120 minutes after completing the training, you begin to experience strange pain sensations that can be characterized as wandering, then you should seriously think about the possible onset of overtraining. If you continue to work in the classroom in the same style, then the body will soon give up and you will have to free yourself from visiting the gym for at least a week.
Painful sensations caused by trauma
The last type of pain is those caused by trauma. Without addressing this issue, an explanation of why muscles ache the day after training is incomplete. When during the lesson you felt a strong aching pain while performing the movement, then it is worth stopping the exercise.
This is due to the fact that there is a high probability of damage and continuation of work can only aggravate the situation. The main symptom of a possible injury is the appearance of sharp, strong pain. Moreover, most often they occur at the moment when you perform the exercise.
In this case, redness or even swelling may appear on the skin. Such pains do not go away, but gradually intensify, if no measures are taken to eliminate them. In such a situation, you should immediately consult a doctor and conduct an examination. In no case do not self-medicate, as the problem can be very serious and surgical intervention is not even ruled out.
How do muscles adapt to physical activity?
We already know why muscles hurt a day after training, and now it is worth considering the process of adapting the body to physical activity. Since painful sensations may indicate a high-quality training, some novice athletes often believe that if there is no pain after training, then they did not work effectively enough.
In practice, things are a little different, although many athletes hear the expression "without pain there will be no growth." Even if you do not feel pain after training, the muscles can grow. The expression we just talked about has a slightly different context - you will not progress. If you don't put in enough effort.
The body gradually adapts to the load (remember the need to increase it?) And at the same time the pain threshold changes. This primarily applies to pro-athletes who train a lot and often. It's just that their pain threshold has dropped significantly and the receptors no longer respond to minor pains.
In addition, people who actively train for a long time increase their recovery abilities. Their bodies need less time to cope with the microdamages received in the classroom. If you do not constantly increase the load, then you simply stop progressing. Muscle growth is an adaptation of the body to physical activity.
Having received an explanation of why the muscles hurt the day after training, you should remember that the absence of pain after training cannot mean that they are ineffective. The muscles just had time to adapt, and you should increase the load on them. In this case, it is necessary to distinguish between "useful" pain sensations from dangerous ones, the cause of which is injury or overtraining.
Why muscles hurt after exercise and what to do in such cases, see the following video:
