One year for our wedding anniversary, Ellen and I went to Aspen, Colorado.
It was in the fall.
The weather was fantastic. Bright blue, sunny skies, crisp mornings, warm afternoons.
So, all of this awesome weather inspired us to walk down Aspen mountain.
You take the gondola up to the top and then walk all the way down to the bottom.
It’s along trek- a couple of miles – but it’s absolutely gorgeous.
But, the next day, well, my legs were spectacularly sore. Like so sore that walking down a flight of stairs made me look the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz.
No some people will argue that I just did a great thing for my leg muscles. That soreness equates to strength gains; that I really did something.
But, some beliefs die slowly.
Like eating fat is bad for you.
Or, that calories in minus calories out always equates to weight loss.
And when you have sore muscles from exercise, that means your “workout” was spot on and super effective; that the soreness is from too much “lactic acid”.
True or not true?
Not true.
The reason you have sore muscles from exercise, is that the activity – which is typically either a new movement or a new level of load (so walking down hill was a new level of load for me) injures the connective tissue the holds your muscles or binds your muscles together and damages the muscle membrane ((Physiology of Sport and Exercise, Fifth Edition by W. Larry Kenney, Jack Wilmore, and David Costill.)) ((Armstrong, R.B. (1984). Mechanisms of exercise-induced delayed onset muscular soreness: a brief review. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 16, 529-538)) It has nothing to do with lactic acid.
The result of the injury causes a release of certain chemicals.. The chemicals sensitize your pain nerve endings so movements that were once painless now hurt.
What This Means For You
It’s reasonable to think that when the soreness is gone, you’re good to go.
But the science says something a little different.
One study showed that muscle soreness was present for up to three days post-exercise. And evidence of muscle damage in the blood was elevated for up to five days. But, the neuromuscular system, “command central”, failed to function normally for up to 10 days. ((Deschenes, M.R., Brewer, R.E., Bush, J.A., McCoy, R.W., Volek, J.S., & Kraemer, W.J. (2000). Neuromuscular disturbance outlasts other symptoms of exercise-induced muscle damage. Journal of the Neurological Sciences, 174, 92-99))
So, if you have sore muscles from exercise, take it easy for several days. Dial back the intensity a bit and let ALL of your systems recover.
And the good news – you do not need muscle soreness to have a “good workout”. In fact, avoiding muscle soreness would make your training even better because you wouldn’t need to lower the intensity on the next several sessions.
Being stiff and sore, to some people, might feel good but it’s not an indicator of a good “workout”.
