Sore Muscles and Lactic Acid

Today's world is very fitness conscious. After living an unhealthy lifestyle, complete with fast food on the run and no exercise at all, people one morning suddenly wake up wanting to attain those enviable six pack abs. With this thought in mind, they hit the gym with a vengeance and workout non-stop for two to three hours. The result? Not a fit and lean body but a body that is screaming assault and begging for mercy. Yes, the next day you will land up with sore muscles all over your body and you won't know what hit you. There are many causes of sore muscles. Lactic acid build up was thought to be the main cause of sore muscles after running or other exercises but that is a myth that is long gone now. Before we go onto discuss what really causes sore muscles, let us see what is lactic acid build up in muscles.

What is Lactic Acid Build Up?
Whenever we do anything that is physically exerting, like exercising, where there is a high demand for glucose in the muscles, the energy is obtained from anaerobic metabolism of glucose. The by-product of this is lactate. When we exercise, then the amount of lactate produced exceeds the rate at which the muscles can remove it. Hence, lactate begins to get concentrated in the muscle. This was how it was believed that this is the reason why a person lands with acidosis and sore muscles. Lactic acid however, leads to merely a feeling of heaviness in the muscles, especially those of the arms and legs, and is not responsible for the muscle soreness experienced by the person the day after. So, what causes the muscle pain and soreness the day after? Let us find out...

What Causes Muscle Soreness?
So now you know the myth of sore muscles being caused due to lactic acid build up is not true. So you will want to know exactly who or what is the culprit when it comes to muscle soreness. Well, the pain that is caused due to muscle soreness actually takes place due to the microscopic tears that occur in muscle fibers. Immediately after working out, a person usually feels good and full of energy, however, after a few hours or half a day, there are sore muscles after workout. On microscopic examination of the muscle fibers, it was seen that there were small tears in the muscle filaments, which was the root cause of muscle pain after a workout.

How to Ease Sore Muscles?
The fact of the matter is that many people think doing warm up and cool down exercises will help in easing sore muscles. Lactic acid that accumulates in muscles is removed from them when warming up and cooling down, and since we have established that it is not lactic acid responsible for the muscle soreness, this does not help in treating muscle soreness after working out. The fact that a person is having muscle soreness after exercising is actually a sign of muscles being worked on. A walk in the park will barely help when compared to a jog on a jogging track. So, when exercising, you ideally need to get tired and need to exercise your muscles. So, if you do have muscle soreness the next day, resting, eating well and remaining hydrated are the only measures that you can take to ease out the soreness.

This was all about causes and ways to deal with sore muscles. Lactic acid no long being the culprit, has finally been replaced with microscopic muscle tears as the cause of sore muscles. So, working out is good for the muscles and for the body, but at the same time, you need to know your limit, so that while endurance training you don't end up with severe sore muscles and joints and macroscopic muscle tears instead of microscopic ones!