How Can Little Muscles Hurt So Much?

Leave a comment
(the inner Dot2Trot)

— The Inner Dot2Trot —

Monday morning I had my first session with my new trainer. She’d planned to take it easy with me for the first week. She didn’t want me getting so sore I’d stop working out.

After our first session, I felt great. We did a lot of work with kettlebells — squats, presses, lunges, crunches and twists. After the session, I hit the treadmill for 45 minutes. It was awesome.  I felt like I had the tiger by the tail.  I just didn’t realize that the tiger was biding his time. Bastard!

Roughly 12 hours later, I made the mistake of getting out of my comfy chair. Wow did that hurt. My hamstrings, abductors and glutes screamed at me in unison.

But I knew the pain meant I’d done something right. I’d asked my muscles to do something they hadn’t done in a long time and this was their response. But I know my body will acclimate and the cycle will start again.

Flash forward to today: I did yoga this morning to help stretch my muscles and warm them up before meeting with my trainer. When I finished and my legs didn’t hurt, I thought I’d turned a corner. Ha!

When I got to the gym today, my trainer did not take pity on me. Working with barbells, I did presses, squats, pull-ups, lunges, rows, step ups and mountain climbers. For each exercise I had to do as many as possible for 30 seconds with only 15 seconds of recovery between exercises.

The soreness came back with abandon — in the glutes, especially.

I toyed with just going home, but I decided to hit the treadmill. After the first 3 minutes I was hurting. I picked up my iPod every intention of abandoning my power walk. Thankfully I ignored this impulse and kept walking, even increasing the speed. About 5 minutes later my legs felt great.

I finished my walk 22 minutes later and left the gym very proud that I’d pushed through the pain.

Related articles

I’m Sore Today…Time To Workout!

Leave a comment
stretchning and muscle soreness

Moderate stretching and exercise on the menu today to combat muscle soreness post backpacking trip. Image courtesy of photostock and FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

I’m sore. My legs feel like lead and my hips stiff.  I jumped into a workout (backpacking) that I haven’t done for a while. Sure I walked about 4 days a week for the last couple of weeks and did yoga everyday. It still didn’t prepare my muscles for the big hike this weekend.

The soreness started Sunday morning, before the hike back. Breaking down camp and some stretching (and a couple of Ibuprofen) seemed to help loosen up my legs.

Today the soreness is back with abandon. I’m expecting the soreness to last about 48 hours before it eases its kung fu death grip on me.

The old me would give in to the pain and rest my body for a few days. Of course the old me also weighed 325 lbs. Sure I’d rest after a tough workout. But getting me to workout again was next to impossible. Why on earth would I want to feel more pain. It seemed that anytime I lifted a finger, I got sore the next day and needed to rest. My workouts were always stop and go, stop and go. So why bother.

I didn’t…and my waistline paid the price.

As I said, that was the old me. My plan now is to take it easy for a couple of days. But that doesn’t mean no exercise. On tap today – light stretching and a 1 mile walk. Tomorrow I go for a swim.  I might add in some resistance band training too, but using the bands with less tension than normal.

I’ve read that exercise may help reduce the lactic acids associated with sore muscles. It certainly helps pump more oxygen and blood to muscles.  I know that my body feel better with moderate exercise and the overall pain and stiffness seems to go away much quicker.

Plus, I need to get my legs ready for a 5K on Saturday.