Sore muscles are one of the less pleasant side effects of exercise. Depending on the type and intensity of the workout, muscle soreness after a workout can range from barely noticeable to extremely painful.
Why Do Our Muscles Get Sore in the First Place?
Muscle soreness after exercise (also referred to as delayed-onset muscle soreness, or DOMS) signals that you caused damage to your muscle tissue, according to the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). When this damage, or micro-tearing, happens, your body initiates the repair process by triggering inflammation at the injured site, says Shawn Arent, PhD, CSCS, a professor and the chair in the department of exercise science at the University of South Carolina in Columbia and the director of its sports science lab.
Fluid accumulates in the muscles, putting extra pressure on the damaged areas, leading to that familiar sensation of tightness and pain that typically begins to develop 12 to 24 hours after your workout, Dr. Arent says.
While you create a little bit of damage every time you exercise, certain types of workouts are notorious for higher levels of damage and — by extension — soreness. In particular, any workout that’s new to you, more intense than usual, or involves a lot of eccentric movements will likely cause more damage and muscle soreness than other types of workouts.
Source: everydayhealth
