Muscle Damage
Unfortunately with training comes soreness and injury. But sometimes
there is a good soreness that means your muscles are changing for
the better. We have all felt that soreness in our muscles when we do
something new or unusual for the first time. It usually peaks on the
day or two after the activity; it is called Delayed Onset Muscle
Soreness (DOMS). This soreness is completely naturally and usually
felt throughout the majority of the muscle, if it is a point
soreness then it may be an injury you need treated, otherwise it is
probably just means your muscles have been damaged as a result of
your training and they will rebuild and remodel themselves and get
stronger for the next time you train them.
Though this is not an injury in the usual sense of the word, your
muscles are in a sense injured and do need time to rebuild. This is
reason why we recommend a break of at least two days between
sessions for the same muscle group; for some people DOMS may peak
after 3 days. Exercise induced muscle damage is an active area of
research by sport scientists and their research suggests that not
only are you sore but you will also be considerably weaker for a
week or more after the exercise bout that induced the damage. The
good news is that your body also responds by protecting against DOMS
for subsequent exercise bouts. So now you have a scientifically
based reason for taking a break, but only from that muscle group!
Hopefully this article has given you tips and motivated you to keep
training or to get training.
Tim.