What Makes Your Muscles Sore? »

forever-athlete:

This is my first blog post for Fit Campus! Tell me what you think!

I’m sure everyone knows the painful feeling of muscle soreness that appears a day or two after hard exercise, also known as delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS).  The symptoms include strength loss, pain, muscle tenderness, swelling, and stiffness, but do you know what actually causes DOMS?

In previous years, it was thought that high levels of lactate were the cause of muscle soreness.  The truth is that lactate does not cause muscle soreness and is actually a useful fuel source for the body, not a waste product.  Plus, lactate returns to normal levels within an hour after exercise.

So what’s the real cause?

Once lactate was cleared of the blame, researchers believed that the soreness resulted from damage to muscle tissue.  However, if this were correct, why would the soreness take 24 to 48 hours to appear?

It turns out that muscle damage is only part of the problem and the muscle repair process is what actually causes the pain we feel later on.

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