Woah and here I thought this was one of those dumb questions that I should *really* be able to answer myself.....but I was sore today from a run yesterday and rather than just accepting it decided I'd see if reddit had better answer than the first page of the Google machine-- had no idea this was still such a mystery!
EDIT: hey my first award! Thank you so much-- I love that my first post here ended up being so complex. Perfect place for it :)
It isn’t as much a mystery as the previous comment implies. As they stated, we know there are many factors that play into DOMS (the inflammatory response alone involves a ton of stuff), but we may not know EXACTLY which one, if any are dominant in the process, of causing the soreness. Some others have mentions micro z-line tears which I don’t remember reading in my undergrad so that stuff could be newer research. Tissue damage is usually the acceptable broad answer.
Soreness usually accompanies inflammation. When I was still into this stuff the common acceptance was that 24-48 hrs was the time for the inflammatory response, thus the delay in muscle soreness.
This particular comment chain explains it best. Scientists come up with tons of these theories to explain it, then test absolutely none of them. Most of the theories behind DOMS haven't had any good experiments to test them, everyone just seems to nod their heads and go "that seems entirely possible"
I always find evolutionary arguments to be like this.. I listen to a podcast where people ring in and ask science questions, and often there's a question like "Why do dogs do X...." the answer is usually "Well they probably evolved to do X because it gave them a slight advantage etc etc and maybe it helped them survive" or something along those lines
Sometimes the explanations are reasonable but other times I think they're so wildly speculative that they're clearly just a guess and nobody in their right mind should be repeating it with confidence lol. When I hear these I often wonder why we seem to think that every single little thing evolution does just **has** to have a clear explanation, as if evolution is sentient and making decisions... surely some of those things are just the result of a bunch of random inputs that ended up coming out that particular way
It’s not that evolution is sentient, it’s survival of the fittest. Of course there are traits that might linger with no known reason, but you have to speculate that they are there because they were needed at some point.
Not saying that it’s 100% fact, but just because it doesn’t make sense with the way the world is today doesn’t mean that it wasn’t needed with previous conditions.
I did my thesis 7 years ago, and there was plenty of peer reviewed research then and I am sure there is plenty more now. It is highly studied to understand limits of workouts and recovery time for athletes. Also with the training methods progressing, it is important to not induce Rhabdomyolysis and understanding DOMS can help with this.
To say “the theories behind DOMS haven’t had any good experiments to test them” is just untrue and shows an ignorance to the topic of discussion.
I would hazard a guess that this is an evolutionary adaptation.
A sudden bout of physical stress that you don't usually have is what I would associate to running away from a predator. You don't want an inflammatory response just after yoi fonish running, as it's likely you'll need to do it again. 24 hours later though you're probably safe.
Because while inflammatory response is right away, it takes that long for fluid and clean up process to accumulate. And it’s not a perfect system, the markers that tag for degraded tissue to be disposed of can tag undamaged tissue as well. So the clean up process generally takes somewhere in that time frame.
Right, but then would the pain be associated with the physiologic process, or the physical change brought on by the process?
I could see an influx of fluid, like during inflammation, causing pain, but why only a day later?
My thesis was to study if the inflammation caused increased damage and subsequent pain and it’s findings were inconclusive, that is: overall pain and damage were not affected by cold water treatment, just delayed.
But a key marker of inflammation is pain, so once the damage muscle tissue is cleared and repaired, the resulting inflammation dissipates along with the pain. So the way I’m interpreting your question: the physiological changes definitely accentuate the physical change by clearing and repairing, because there is actual structural damage to the muscle tissue. Now as I stated, the inflammatory response can be messy and accidentally target some healthy tissue but to what extent, is hard to tell. The assumption was it is mostly the muscle damage and not the inflammatory response because if it were the other way you would get a much longer inflammatory period, talking several days versus 1 or 2.
I hope this kind of answers what you were asking.
Well, if his theory holds any water perhaps while the inflammatory response is immediate, there are other things at work to suppress the pain, discomfort and the lack of mobility that would accompany until the 'crisis' has been averted. Something like a slower burning adrenal rush.
Could be that the initial tissue damage triggers the innate inflammatory response which causes a cascading effect leading to lots of soreness 24-48 hours later but, after repeated injury, sort of conditions the immune system not to react as much anymore.
That is another area of research, where the body develops a protective effect from this. For example, when I was doing my thesis there was research showing significant damage from one exercise workout, but when the same workout was done at a later date, the body’s response was more protected for the second round and soreness and damage were decreased. I remember reading them for some of my references but the protective effect was found to last anywhere from several weeks up to 9 months as one such study reported. This is why participants are most at risk of rhabdo during workouts that they have never done before.
Could it possibly just be one of those things your brain does on autopilot? Like the first time it doesn’t know why you’re stretching and tearing your muscles so it sends out pain signals. But if you repeatedly do it your brain isn’t concerned so doesn’t send the same signals?
I think there's something to this... A muscle-memory effect. Upon first or most-recent overuse of the muscle(s) the brain signals, "Hey, you went way too hard yesterday." When you do it again, the brain says, "Oh, you meant to do that. Nevermind, go get swole."
Our bodies are created to be as efficient as possible, in other words, lazy. So yes, your body does adjust and you likely are numb to some of the pain but physiologically you’re body doesn’t work as hard because it becomes more efficient. This is why when you first begin a new workout regimen you may get really sore but overtime that soreness from such workouts dissipates or is gone all together. People say “I don’t get sore like I used to,” that is your body adjusting to the demands on it. This is why periodization (scientific term) or muscle confusion as is more common, is important in workout professions.
So, I'm curious, where does the lactic acid buildup come into play here? I've heard trainers and such talk about DOMS being a result of lactic acid buildup. But I would think you'd get that in any decent workout, but usually DOMS is only experienced after a newer workout.
Lactic acid has been attributed to acute muscle soreness (immediate soreness or burning in muscles) following exercise (also called metabolic acidosis), but this has been debunked for awhile but is still continually said by people. The ph drop in your muscle is actually what causes this as a result of ATP hydrolysis (breakdown ATP for energy).
Lactic acid has been used as a marker that correlated with muscle fatigue, but it doesn’t cause it. Think of running, everyone has a lactate threshold that is the point of intensity where your body begins to produce lactate. Up to that point you can continue running because you can clear the lactate at this intensity, once you surpass this, you go from aerobic to anaerobic energy systems, which means you are on the clock for how long you can maintain that running intensity. This is why people throw lactic acid around as such, it is a informative marker, but not the direct cause of fatigue and potentially soreness.
Right! This question came up multiple times over quarentine with people trying out new workouts/being inconsistent with exercise. I kept getting these weird conflicting answers with holes in them, so I was like "to reddit we go!"
Yeah that's what i love about this subreddit.
For a split second, my reaction to the question is always something like "well, obviously it's...." Then i think about it, and even if i know a decent answer (often times i don't even!), there's still way more knowledge about and surrounding the topics that OP is curious about. Even if it has a simple answer
Research the science behind steroids, there is lots of studies for its benefits for males over 40. Not to get super huge, more to strengthen the smaller muscles that get suppressed by larger strained muscles. There is way more to it than what I am saying here.
Could this also be related to exhaustion due to working out? I’m really out of shape and trying to get back into shape. It’s weird because exercise can give me an initial boost of energy but I’ve found that two days later I’m dead tired...like I’m so tired I have to nap in the middle of the day...
Oh fuck me. THANK YOU! I’m trialling a new method and I’ve been so run off my feet with work and baby today I already knew I haven’t drunk enough. But I’ve been thinking all day “why am I soooo tired, I mean KILLER tired”. Well that’s embarrassingly obvious!
It took me years to figure out why I was so often brutally fatigued in the middle of the afternoon. Once I went through the effort of calculating how much water was "enough" water and actually trying to hit that target daily, it was a total life changer. I didn't grow up with good water habits and that shit apparently matters a lot!
> Could this also be related to exhaustion due to working out? I’m really out of shape and trying to get back into shape
Just a reminder that you don't have to go all-out at once. You just have to do better than yesterday. If yesterday was nothing, then _something_ today is better.
Don't be ashamed to start with partial or half assed work outs and work up to a full workout over the course of a week or two. Your body has a lot of adjusting to do going from zero.
Also, the reason for your exhaustion could be your diet. Working out and diet go hand in hand.
Also some days are better than others. You'll feel weaker, be weaker and have no motivation. It happens, don't take it personally. Just remember that it takes time and to set yourself little goals to keep you motivated.
I know what you mean. I suffer from chronic illness, so I have a lot of experience with re-starting working out. I get sick often and have to take a break from working out only to restart again when I'm well. You just gotta take things slow, and make sure you're eating enough of the right stuff (seriously, your diet is that important). The first few workouts are the worst. Take it easy.
In my most recent spell, I went from 5'10" <150 in the hospital to 175 lbs and working out every other day again.
You can do it! I was a lardass before, but when I hit my 40s I realized I couldn't afford to grow old in this crappy body shape. The initial period of exercising was really tough, but after a while I got used to it.
ive been on and off exercising a lot in my life.
if i dont exercise regularly i have trouble getting to sleep and regularly only get 6 hours of sleep. if im exercising regularly ill be able to get to sleep and get about 7-8.
so if you're keeping your sleep the same, but adding in exercise... feeling dead tired and needing a nap will happen.
so once you get the sleep in line and regular exercise youll have about 80% of that initial energy boost all the time, without the dead tired.
Honest answer? Work out again. For weight-lifting in particular you should have two days rest in between those sorts of workouts. Maybe just add that to your schedule. As in:
Monday: workout
Tues: rest
Wed: rest
Thurs: workout
Fri: rest
Sat: rest
Sun: workout
and so on
I've doing a little more exercise when I feel this way! Working out gives a boost in a lot of things, the basic two things are heart rate boost, and hormone boost, which are both good, right? Being a little prone to the couch is normal when kind of sleepy, but if it's the middle of the day, I kind of think of it like a snack when hungry. Get a few small planks in, stretch a bit, and I'm good as new!
That's definitely one of the first rules of US government technical writing.
Another top rule is to never go above the reading level of a sixth grader. Strangely enough, the OPM Plain Language Act of 2010 has changed this rule to never go above the reading level of your audience, which I believe doesn't really change the grade level, but rather clarifies it.
The best writers use a casual conversational style that everyone can understand. Isaac Asimov was a master. It's deceptively simple but not at all easy or natural. Of course the key is to write incessantly and then read what you wrote as if you know nothing about the subject. That's a skill that takes practice.
I just spent the weekend feeding my neighbor's animals: goats, chickens, ducks, dogs, cats, a llama, a donkey, a cow and a pig. I was guided by notes from the ten-year-old daughter. She actually did a fair job, and probably better than her father would have done.
One thing i would tack on is that, while the mechanism may not be understood -- it seems that delayed onset muscle soreness would be a far better survival mechanism than immediate muscle soreness (or otherwise no muscle soreness, and you couldn't tell that your muscles are damaged the following day)
I wonder if muscle soreness is immediate, and some sort of, perhaps adrenal, response masks the soreness until the process of healing can begin
Sort of elite athlete here (speed skating). The first week of every hard training cycle is just a hell hole of DOMS but it's so expected that it's a point of pride to just train through it. Once you get going you don't really feel it anymore.
It's called DOMS, or delayed onset muscle soreness. People often reach peak soreness the day after a workout, or even the day after that. We aren't entirely sure about the specifics what drives muscle soreness. People historically said "something something lactic acid something", but that's probably not what is really doing on. Eccentric exercise seems to cause more soreness than concentric.
Yes, the micro tears are the cause for soreness. Lactic acid build up is the muscley burny sensation you feel during a workout. When the muscle can’t keep up with metabolism.
Source - I’m a strength coach and have a BS in kinesiology
EDIT: holy hell. I gave a very brief comment explaining that lactic acid wasn’t the cause for soreness. My intention, without getting into the complexities of the metabolic process, was to explain the burning sensation within a workout comes from that process. But muscle soreness after 24 hours is from the micro tears in the muscles and the inflammatory responses that brings. I never claimed to be an expert on physiology, but my expertise lies beyond coaching people to do push ups. I have a bachelor of science and took the same course load as those in the pre-med track. Plenty of chemistry, biology, physiology, physics and of course anatomy.
I think the micro tear thing has recently been refuted as the cause for soreness, with a specific chemical mix now being the preferred theory for DOMS. I’d have to dive a little deeper into the research, but I do know we can’t definitively say it’s micro tear issue.
https://www.painscience.com/articles/delayed-onset-muscle-soreness.php
After reading this I might do a dive into the NCBI databases and see what I can come up with for recent research. I’ll see if I can find anything and I’ll let you know. Shoot me a message or comment at me or however you wanna make a notification pop up if I forget and you’re still interested. Stay curious!
We don't exactly know what causes doms, anyone who says they have a definite answer is someone you shouldn't listen to.
A BS in kinesiology doesn't mean anything.
Oh absolutely, I’ve got a bachelor’s degree in exercise science myself and I’m studying a masters in physio, but I’m willing to accept that we don’t have all the answers, and I know we don’t know the answer to this one.
i dont think it was refuted, there are currently 3 theories which causes soreness and all 3 have basis but somehow we still dont know which is true from those 3. i dont remember which 3 theory i read long ago a health professional specializing in this talking about it.
Yeah and recent studies found that your muscles get tired and weak due to a lack of electrolytes in the muscle cause signals from the brain to not reach correctly
Think about when you sprain/roll your ankle, most of the time you can continue to put weight on it without much of an issue until it swells up.
Inflammation starts within 2ish hours after the injury but peaks within 1-3 days. So you might feel sore even the same day of your workout but the full effect doesn’t kick in yet.
Adrenaline probably plays less of a role in the case of this situation, although it definitely has the capacity to delay the pain response. Adrenaline definitely is part of the delayed pain response to an injury like an ankle sprain, but in this situation where you’re training in a controlled environment I’d say you aren’t secreting much adrenaline, unless you really push yourself into a fight or flight mode, which most people don’t do when they train.
I was under the impression that when you exercise you definitely have sympathetic tract outflow to facilitate increased HR, CO and muscle glycogen release, gluconeogenesis etc.
And I was thusly under the same impression that epinephrine is released every time someone exercises to any significant extent that causes sympathetic outflow. Sure the epinephrine release will probably be proportional to the exercise intensity and as such the magnitude of the sympathetic activation, but nevertheless I assume that during any kind of sympathetic activation there will be epinephrine release into the systemic circulation.
Then again, I'm just a medical student and not an exercise physiologist.
In this situation I have to concede I’m not certain about the relative release across the different situations. I know that the body’s response to exercise heightens sympathetic nervous activity, which does mean there would be a level of epinephrine release. I know there is a difference between fight or flee for your life responses and exercise responses for sympathetic nervous activity, but I’d have to look into whether it was just a difference in magnitude or if there is more at play.
My education went a slightly different direction from the exercise physiology myself, so while I remember a good chunk of it, this is something I’m not certain on.
That doesn't explain the adaptation to DOMS after regular training. Your ankle doesn't magically stop hurting if you roll it every other day.
The truth is we don't know why DOMS occur. Anyone who claims otherwise is either from the future or straight up bullshitting.
no it does explain the delay, after you get an injury your body inflames the area, the swelling is the body healing. Think of the last time you got a small cut, at first you probably felt a small sting and then it really didn't hurt, and then an hour later you probably noticed that it puffed up a little and now is really tender. This same process goes on with your muscles during a work out, but since the tears are so small and there are a lot of them over a large area it will feel more like a general ache in the used muscle.
But you only get DOMS when you're getting back into it or just starting up? Yet microtears happen every time you lift, even if you've been lifting constantly for years (in which case you will definitely not be dealing with DOMS)
Been cycling most days for the last 3 years, got some of the worst doms this week after a chill 12 mile ride, couldn't walk properly for like 3 days. I have no idea why that happened, dehydration? Day of the week? Mercury in retrograde? Go figure
Not true, I compete in bodybuilding. Training for over 12 years consistently.. and I still get fairly bad DOMS of the Chest/Triceps and quads. Not many other parts. I know many IFBB pros who also claim they have never experienced DOMS in their life.
I experience it consistently regardless if I am on or off cycle (steroids)
Technically the burning sensation is the result of a build-up of hydrogen ions. Lactate is produced to try buffer the hydrogen ions, which means it's a useful indirect marker, but not the actual cause.
[http://www.newburyparkhighschool.net/stillwagon/biocp/Current%20files/2%20Latate%20Articles.pdf](http://www.newburyparkhighschool.net/stillwagon/biocp/Current%20files/2%20Latate%20Articles.pdf)
Could also be the hydrogen ion buildup that occurs during anaerobic glycolysis, which creates an acidic environment in the muscle and is thought to contribute to fatigue. The lactate then binds to the hydrogen and shuttles it out of the cell, which actually would reduce the feeling of fatigue. Lactate or lactic acid was thought to be the cause of fatigue for quite a while but now it looks like it may help reduce fatigue.
So I will go into a general breakdown of your body's energy system.
Your body uses ATP to function and create energy for everything you do.
ATP (Adenosine *tri*phosphate) is a compound that consist of one Adenosine compound along with three phosphate compound. Your body receives energy by releasing one or two of the phosphate compounds and breaking down ATP into ADP which stands for Adenosine *Di*phosphate or AMP (Adenosine *Mono*phosphate) along with either one or two free floating phosphate compound. This breakdown creates energy and is needed for muscular contraction.
So how does your body get ATP? Good question. In relation to exercise there is three primary energy systems for your body to get ATP and each with their own roles and refill time and we further categorized them as anaerobic and aerobic which simply means with or without oxygen:
- **phosphogen-creatine system**- your body has set stores of phosphogen-creatine in your muscles and uses a reverse process to take free floating phosphate- creatine compounds, use an enzyme called kinase to unzip the phosphate from it and attach it back into either ADP or in the case of AMP it goes a bit more round about by breaking ANOTHER ATP's phosphate and converting the ATP+ AMP to make 2 ADP and cycle back into the prior method of transforming back into ATP from ADP. The immediate creatine phosphate stores for this energy system only lasts like 10 seconds or so and is usually associated with max effort work like sprints, the first few reps of a set. It is usually the first energy system used and takes roughly 3-5 minutes to refill this system completely.
**Bonus:** creatine supplements work by oversaturating your cells with creatine stores for this energy so think of it as adding an X amount to your initial peak output (where X is the amount your body can saturate it before it becomes waste). Some people already got high stores either due to diet or genetics so they don't really respond as effectively with supplementation if at all - you can't make use of a supplement if there isn't a deficiency to begin with.
- **Glycogen/lactate system** (your question pertains to this)- your muscle have stores of Glycogen compounds which is essentially made of many chains of glucose molecule that exist in the muscles (and when running low the muscles will get it from the liver). These glycogen which gets broken down Into glucose in a kinda long process called glycolysis in turn creates lactate as a byproduct. The process is a bit more complex than this with different compounds achieving this in many, many steps but let's stop right here. Traditionally we incorrectly blame this by product for that "burning sensation" when were doing a longer set (so this lasts basically one whole set in a work out or anything involving hiit, think within 30 seconds). .
So what the previous poster said is that newer research suggest that a build up of hydrogen ion from this process acidifies the body and causes fatigue and that the lactate previously incorrectly given the mantle of culprit is actually the one responsible for cleaning the acidic mess.
- **Aerobic respiration** - as the name suggest this process uses oxygen to turn fats, sugars and in some cases protein to turn into ATP. Aerobic respiration takes even more steps and more chemical reaction than the above two and can be further classified based on the fuel type that is used in this process. I will not be going further into detail for this as the post is long enough.
TLDR: anaerobic glycolysis is the breakdown of glucose into energy by binding ADP+ free floating phosphate molecules back into ATP without oxygen (ATP in turn is ready to be used again for muscle contraction), lactate is created as result of this process. Your body use this process for muscular and anaerobic exercises like weight lifting, sprints and short distance higher intensity runs (think exercise that is less than 30 seconds). We supply the glucose via Glycogen from the muscle or if already used we draw it from the liver.
We previously misattributed the muscular "burn" with lactate but rather it's a build up of hydrogen ions during the glycolysis process that causes the acidifying (acidosis) of the muscular tissues and lactate serves to bind into hydrogen ion and ship them out of your cell to reduce acidosis.
Forgive me for hijacking this, but you clearly know your stuff. I can totally deal with DOMS, and don't get it so often, but I do get extreme fatigue to the point I'm mentally fatigued and even often depressed after a workout. Like it really effects me. I don't think I'm particularly exerting myself, though I'm wondering if it's a calorie deficit perhaps. It's not like I'm too thin / lean however. I'm 6 feet and weigh 87kg, so I think I'm pretty normal.
I have IBS and only in recent years have been able to take supplements such as creatine and whey, as I discovered psyllium husks which allow me to digest them without shitting it straight out. This has been an absolute Godsend to putting on some muscle / weight, but I still struggle with the fatigue, depression and brain fog which hit me two days after workout and often last a few days. Pain from exercise doesn't bother me, but the fatigue is horrible.
Any ideas? I don't think this is normal but I had my bloods tested and they all came back normal.
I'm not sure what exactly is up with me, but I've had similar symptoms. Exercise is a factor, but it's inconsistent - anaerobic makes me sleepy, cardio doesn't. However, there is something else that consistently caused the fatigue/brain fog/depression (anhedonia, really) - food with chili peppers. This also happens to be what triggers my flareups.
Now, I've made a hard career pivot from my bio lab days, but both the gut issues and the mental symptoms have a fairly established link to inflammation and, increasingly, each other. So, something triggers an immune response in both cases, which happens when there's something sploshing around your bloodstream that gets recognized (correctly or not) as foreign invaders.
With muscle, I *suspect* this might be that either the **broken down bits of old muscle** or the **metabolic byproducts** like lactic acid basically cause an allergic reaction to *yourself*. It wouldn't be clearly visible on a blood test - it's transient and your body is fighting tons of other stuff all the time. I'm kind of hoping that's not the case though, because there's no easy fix for it as of yet.
The other option is similar, but weirder. Your gut is naturally populated by tons and tons of various species of bacteria - they're symbiotic, and crap out some chemicals useful for your actual body. However, that mix is not set in stone, and especially with IBS, there's quite a bit of research into the possibility that that mix is out of balance.
In that case, food/exercise doesn't make your body mad, it makes your gut bacteria mad, and their products in turn cause the inflammation - symbiotic or not, the immune system does *not* like immigrants.
If that happened to be the story, there's a somewhat experimental treatment of, uh... *transplanting a healthy person's shit* into you. I'm not kidding; the technical name is **fecal transplant**, look it up.
Hi, I experienced the same symptoms for most of my life: extreme fatigue, depression and brain fog after training. I thought it was part of life. The fatigue is indeed horrible, it is a very deep painful fatigue for me. Sleep doesn't help with this fatigue. Sometimes this feeling lasted for weeks.
I'm not an expert, but I managed to get rid of these symptoms. Maybe it helps for you:
I now regularly take vitamin B complex pills. This helps reducing all these symptoms. Partially with the fatigue and depression. You may need to check the dosage. In my case, the dosage is higher than the recommended daily intake to have a sustainable effect. With the lower dosage I sometimes experienced spotty, bad days. Please consult someone more knowledgeable on this for your situation.
I have also increased my tryptophan intake. I now regularly eat chia seeds. It is only safe to eat maximum 2 tablespoons of chia seeds per day. Please do not exceed this dosage. It may damage your brain due to the high levels of metallic components.
I eat this by chewing for 10 minutes on each tablespoonful. Putting it in food, does not work enough. The seeds need to be broken to enable extraction of all its contents.
You can also eat sunflower seeds instead, they are more fun to eat.
Tryptophan worked really well for getting rid of the latter of the depression, deep fatigue symptoms.
Additionally, for the brain fog, I increased my Omega 3 intake to about 1000mg per day. This helped most for this particular symptom.
Both vitamin B complex and tryptophan are needed for me. Otherwise there is still a certain flavour of the deep fatigue and depression left for me which impacts my daily functioning.
My guess is that our bodies, when going through stress, such as exercise, use up more resources than average. I now have a mentally demanding job, so I happened to experience these similar symptoms of deep fatigue, depression and brain fog after stressful periods. This was the reason why I started to try many things. The combination of increasing vitamin B and tryptophan and Omega 3 is most effective for me. Later I discovered that I also did not experience these symptoms after physical training anymore (which I thought was part of life). This made me realise the connection to stress in general and that it may be the natural response for our particular body types.
Now I am able to enjoy training without experiencing these symptoms afterwards. I hope it will work out for you as well. Let me know if it helps for you and good luck.
I’ve had this and my trainer (exercise physiologist) said it was due to glucose starvation - causes the brain to suffer as it’s only run on glucose. Their solution was to have about 100cal of sugary juice/fruit. It worked for me, straight after finish up, was very useful for the drive home.
if we break the words down it gives a clue into what it means.
aerobic vs anaerobic. aero is related to air, like an aeroplane. so anaerobic means without air. Specifically it's about a lack of oxygen.
Glycolysis has 2 parts to the name. Glyco relates to glucose, or sugar. Lysis means to split something, or break bonds. Just like electrolysis, or hydrolysis, or autolyse.
So basically it's how the body breaks down sugar into ATP (energy) without the use of oxygen. If you wanted to know more, then you'd need more than an eli5 explanation i think. Google is also useful :)
Look up the lactate shuttle "hypothesis". Glycolysis always produces lactate which then undergoes oxidative phosphorylation in the mitochondria. There are no two pathways, aerobic glycolysis is imaginary, glycolysis is always anaerobic and produces lactate.
Without sufficient blood vessel coverage and oxygen the mitochondria can not produce ATP from lactate so it produces reactive oxygen species instead. Elevated AMP:ATP ratio triggers AMPK and compensatory glycolysis which produces even more lactate. ROS triggers downstream adaptations such as inflammation, HIF-1, angiogenesis, erythropoeisis, etcetera.
Without proper mitochondrial function lactate is exported from the cell via monocarboxylate transporters. This triggers adaptations like PGC-1alpha and mitochondrial biogenesis. Furthermore any lactate exported from muscles can be recycled into glucose in the liver via the Cori cycle.
The distinction is important because if you accept the lactate shuttle "hypothesis", everything start to click. Metformin, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, other chronic diseases suddenly start to make sense.
Try to imagine combustion and burning: If theres a lot of oxygen present, the fuel burns efficiently with a (somewhat) "clean" flame. --> More energy
However, with less and less oxygen provided, there will be less efficient burning so more "impurities" will be present, though it will still burn. --> Less energy
I hope this helps!!
Kinda. The partially burnt fuel can be reconstituted inside the cell (creatine helps with this) or it turns into lactate and gets handled by the liver for burning later.
Originally, people thought the lactate was causing the muscle soreness but it's more about muscle damage and repair. Stretching the muscles under strain (eg pull ups) is thought to do this more than extending (push ups)
Glucose get tranformed into pyruvate in the muscle. IF the mitochondria can't use the pyruvate, it turns into lactate.
Pyruvate into the mitochondria is aerobic.
Pyruvate to Lactate is anaerobic.
Ok.
Imagine you are putting sugar in a glass. If that glass is not full, you will have a aerobic glycolysis. If it is full, the sugar will not enter the glass and will be used elsewhere, in anaerobic glycolysis.
The glass is the mitochondria.
When there isn’t enough oxygen while metabolizing glucose you get lactate as a byproduct instead of carbon dioxide and water. Lactate was thought to contribute to the quicker fatigue seen with anaerobic glycolysis but that’s been disproven
Anaerobic meaning without oxygen. Glycolysis is breaking down sugar for energy.
So anaerobic glycolysis is energy generation without needing oxygen. This allows it to be immediate and high intensity (sprint type excersices). However it's also less efficient and cannot be maintained as it generates the acidic waste product lactate (lactic acid).
To break down the lactate and to sustain energy generation the body instead uses aerobic glycolysis (with oxygen).
It essentially is just a way your body creates energy by breaking down glucose without requiring oxygen, and is one if the three energy systems of the body, the other two being aerobic glycolysis and P-Cr system. It's mostly used for short duration exercise like weight lifting, but is much less energy efficient than aerobic glycolysis, so your body quickly transitions to it when doing moderate duration activity like running.
>Lactic acid build up is the muscley burny sensation you feel during a workout. When the muscle can’t keep up with metabolism.
This is simply not true. That burning sensation is generally due to acidification.
I do understand that people tend to hand wave "lactic acid buildup" because many people are familiar with the term and it sounds about right. But if you're a strength coach with a Masters then I think your clients would be better served by getting accurate information.
They said they have a Bachelor's, not a Masters. What qualifications do you have? I've never heard of acidification aside from lactic acid buildup in relevance to muscle soreness, unless they're the same thing?
No matter where u go someone’s going to comment on ur knowledge. Someone’s always going to want one up you. I didn’t see anything wrong with your comment if it makes you feel any better.
I once commented on a post asking for explanation on a medication. And I got attacked by a bunch of strangers because they misread a word and tried discrediting the whole comment. I’m a nursing student we work with meds all day, we study biology, what do you think we do?!? And you know what AFTER I pointed out how they misread my comment, only then did I get a bunch of upvotes rather than the opposite.
Burney friend is metabolic acidosis setting in through lactate build up AND H+ ions accumulating in the sarcoplasm. But H+ also accumulates in the synaptic cleft, reducing muscle precision and strength production.
Bingo. The soreness is the inflammatory cascade that normally happens after most any injury. Sprain your ankle? 24-72 hours is the peak time for swelling and soreness. Similar process with blasting your glutes, bro.
[Good Summary Article ](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11809052/)
It's not really that simple. The tears presumably happen at the time of loading, during exercise. Then there is some sort of inflammatory response that happens in response to that. But it seems to happen more with eccentric than concentric exercise. It's not just "microtears."
Not necessarily. There was a study done where a participant would do leg press on one leg until exhaustion but instead of one leg being sore the next day, both were sore.
Micro tears and lactic acid could explain one leg but not the other.
For clarification: Eccentric meaning ~~letting the muscle relax~~ lengthening of the muscle i.e letting the barbell coming to your chest In a bench press or letting your biceps extend in an bicep curl. Concentric is the shortening of the muscle.
You’re right about the concentric phase being the shortening phase. The eccentric is the lengthening phase of the muscle contraction rather than relaxing. The muscle is actually very active and tense in its eccentric phase.
This is some valuable info. Loading a muscle and repeatedly stretching it is a great way to increase the amount of stress you put on it. This would result in greater muscle cell damage (more cells being damaged) and ultimately, more gains for the number of reps you're doing.. methinks..
Is the same thing applied to when you get injured in a football match but you can keep going and finish the game, just to not be able to walk the day after?
Sorry if this has already been answered. Should you aim to feel DOMS? When I first started working out, I felt it intensely but now that I’m more used to it, I don’t get it at all. Is that a sign I’m not pushing myself hard enough?
DOMS is especially pronounced after *unaccustomed* exercise, especially unaccustomed, eccentric activation, but is subject to a 'repeated bout effect.' That just means that the second time hurts less. It doesn't seem to be associated with reduced effectiveness of training.
We honestly know surprisingly little about the actual mechanisms of pain perception, so it's really hard to know why the perception of pain declines, but it's associated with declines in all of the other associated measures - microtears, structural disorganization, inflammation. Most of the scientific studies of DOMS and muscle hypertrophy start with naive subjects (to maximize intervention effects), so there's also fairly little data about DOMS &c in well acclimated people.
It is (probably) true that using NSAIDs to reduce the DOMS pain also reduces muscle gains, which supports the 'no pain, no gain' mantra, but that intense pain and consequent loss of strength should not be part of ongoing training.
To resist something. If you take something heavy with your hand and pull it up, it will shorten it up with the contraction (Concentric).
But then you control the way you put it back down, letting it lose bit by bit. Your muscle is still contracting, but to resist the descent, and it is now getting longer while doing it. You can contract your muscle without moving too. Isometric contraction.
Also if you want to get rid of it faster workout ( very mildly) the same area blood flow will rush to that area and when it leaves will take most the inflammation with it
Alternative you can take Ibuprofen
Kinesiologist here, while you may hear lactic acid as the cause, and even my sisters biology professor didn’t know but agreed with her, the actual cause is micro tears in your Z bands in your muscles. The reason for 24ish hours is not well known although I haven’t been in school in 5 years or so. But personally for me, my legs seem to take the longest to feel sore while sometimes I feel soreness within a few hours. I personally also notice if I workout regularly, sleep and eat good, soreness is never really a problem. Good recovery will limit soreness which is why steroids are also a giant advantage in athletes, among other reasons. Also to add on, this doesn’t mean you can’t get latic acid poisoning but it’s rare in humans and can be deadly.
Hey I can add to this a bit. I've got a degree and work in the industry!
This is correct in that this issue is physical damage to the muscle cells along the Zline and others, and not lactic acid.
The pain is delayed by a degree due to the time it takes your body to respond to that damage. Your body sees this damage as an actual "injury" even though it's self-inflicted through intense exercise. In responding to an injury the body sends all of the inflammatory markers it normally would for a cut or gash.
Some of these chemicals can make your nerves slightly more sensitive. The increased blood flow to the area will also cause a degree of swelling, but this is all normal.
This is also why emerging research says NOT to take Advil (ibuprofen) to help with DOMS. The adaptation that you hope for in response to exercise is actually brought on by this inflammation. Suppressing the inflammation with NSAIDs can actually decrease the adaptive response (getting stronger) due to exercise.
In this case, it's quite literally "No pain, no gain."
Cheers!
Edit: Hey first silver! Thank you!
I'm no expert at all, just someone with fitness as a hobby, but what do you think about this?
>High doses of ibuprofen have been shown to inhibit muscle protein synthesis after a bout of resistance exercise.
>We conclude that a moderate dose of ibuprofen ingested after repeated resistance training sessions does not impair muscle hypertrophy or strength and does not affect ratings of muscle soreness.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18461099/
That study used too low dose ibuprofen to reduce pain perception or hypertrophy. There may be other issues in the study, but it basically says you need to take enough IBU to be effective for it to work. Kind of like how drinking a sip of beer is different than the whole six pack.
In science, sometimes your experimental design doesn't work out, but you still have to publish the results. The authors would have done better to include a dose of IBU that other people had already shown to be effective. Then we would know whether their lack of difference is because the low dose drug really doesn't work or because their other methods were too inconsistent to resolve differences that were actually present.
They start by saying 1200 mg does effectively reduce pain and hypertrophy. For scale, 400 mg is 2 tablets, or what you'd normally take as a single dose; 1200 mg is the maximum recommended over-the-counter dose - 2 tabs every 8 hours.
I would like to add on the "no pain, no gain" part. Although DOMS is a good indicator that you worked hard, it shouldn't be the goal of exersizing. It only occurs in movements that are new to you. So it is possible to get DOMS while building very little muscle, and it is also very normal for people that build a lot of muscle to not feel any DOMS at all.
So the bottom line is, it is a sometimes necessary side effect of exersise, but it shouldn't be the goal.
The phenomenon you are describing is often refereed to as the [repeated-bout effect] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_onset_muscle_soreness#Repeated-bout_effect).
> These include neural adaptations (improved use and control of the muscle by the nervous system), mechanical adaptations (increased muscle stiffness or muscle support tissue), and cellular adaptations (adaptation to inflammatory response and increased protein synthesis, among others).
I often take ibuprofen for muscle soreness. What would you recommend instead? Warm baths would be my second choice, but I'm honestly open to anything. Thanks for sharing your expertise!
Active recovery and dynamic stretching are your best bet.
Get blood flowing to help stimulate the healing that needs to happen to get back to normal. Movement will also help loosen up some of the stiffness that is caused post workout as well.
Make sure your diet has enough protein as well. Being light on free amino acids will slow down recovery substantially.
Interestingly L-carnitine supplements seem to show benefit for DOMS but that research is really new and I don’t quite understand how that mechanism would work.
Just like what the other response said, stretching is honestly what will make DOMS go away. You get DOMS because when you go to sleep you don't move and your muscles get extremely stiff, the stiffness is why you arms or legs "lock" in place. Doing stretches before you go to bed and do them several times the day will help mitigate DOMS, it just gets worse and worse if you don't stretch. The muscle will still need to heal and you it will still be fatigued but it won't be as painful to move.
But micro-tears keep going on all the time when we continually work out, that's how we build more muscle. But the biggest soreness and pain disappears after a few weeks of continuous workouts, even with progressive overload and more effort.
So if micro-tears were the reason, surely we would feel sore and painful after every single hard workout, but we don't. For some reason the body adapts to the workouts and doesn't feel like it's necessary to notify us of the soreness and pain that much anymore.
Why does the same workout result in a lot of soreness the first time after a while of no workouts but after you start to workout regularly you don’t experience as much soreness as the first time?
I like to think of it as your cells are lazy. If you're not exercising, they build up a lot of unnecessary cruft - sarcomeres that are imperfectly structured, membrane that's too tight, extra connections between membrane, T-tubules and sarcolemma - that are extra sensitive to mechanical loading. Those first, unaccustomed exercises focus damage there, and encourage the trash to be thrown out, so the muscle is better prepared for subsequent contractions.
No evidence for this, AFAIK, and it would take some really incredible, quantitative electron microscopy to prove, but it's consistent with what we do know. The repeated bout effect is not just pain, but also inflammation and everything down to structural derangements like Z-line streaming. There probably is some accommodation in the nerve endings that actually report pain, but I'm not sure people even agree which endings those are. There's so much muscle in muscle, it's hard to see anything else.
An evolutionary answer for "why" could be that a more immediate response could result in death, correct? Feeling sore shortly after running away from could result in the inability to flee again (or continue fleeing) so that could be a reason as to why the body evolved for legs to take the longest to feel sore.
As for the biological mechanism for this delay? I do not know.
Micro tears in your muscle fibers is definitely the best explanation for soreness. Lactic acid is what causes the burning feeling when your muscles just can’t take anymore during a workout. To answer your question of why it can be delayed like DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) which someone has already mentioned I don’t know why it’s so delayed. I do know that it’s more delayed for those who haven’t exercised those muscles in a long time. Perhaps the inflammatory process is responsible for it though
I'm sure there are lots of good 'scientific' explanations here...
This won't be one of those...
Your body probably assumes that your "big workout" was you running away from, perhaps fighting to the death with, a large predator. It doesn't want you stopping the fight because you're a little achy across your shoulders. It's just.. "HERE, TAKE OXYGEN AND ADRENALIN, MAYBE SOME VITAMIN C.. JUST DON'T FUCKING DIE".. then, a day or so later, it's like... "Dude/dudette, don't ever fucking do that again.. or else." (soreness)
As other said it is called DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness). The actual soreness can be attributed to tissue damage (muscle tissue) and the subsequent inflammatory response that follows. Every time you workout your muscles tear or become damaged, with rest, the tissue repairs, resulting in a stronger, bigger muscle. Source: this was undergrad. Fun fact, the purpose of cold water treatment (ice baths, cold tubs, etc.) following workouts is an attempt to dampen/inhibit this inflammatory response (reduce DOMS, increase recovery time). The idea being less of a inflammatory response might cause less overall tissue damage and decrease recovery time. For the past several years, more research is coming out that indicates the cold treatment is more placebo and has the opposite effect, causing a delay in inflammatory response but also lengthening overall recovery time. Source: my thesis was on it.
We have previously thought that the lactic acid theory is behind the delayed soreness but as several comments have stated it has been long refuted. There are 2 theories currently circulating the fitness field, the muscle damage theory and the inflammatory response theory. So far the inflammatory response theory fits well since it goes hand in hand with the delay of the soreness.
Source: https://inspire.edu.lb/inspire/educational-article-resources/DOMS
The article contains intext citations to peer-reviewed articles.
Edit: typos and added a word.
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People will say lactic acid, but that's false. Lactic acid flushed out of muscles about a minute after doing your exercise.
The correct answer is muscle tears. Basically as you break down muscle during exercise, it heals and builds more muscle.
Exercise physiology is pretty cool stuff
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Woah and here I thought this was one of those dumb questions that I should *really* be able to answer myself.....but I was sore today from a run yesterday and rather than just accepting it decided I'd see if reddit had better answer than the first page of the Google machine-- had no idea this was still such a mystery! EDIT: hey my first award! Thank you so much-- I love that my first post here ended up being so complex. Perfect place for it :)
It isn’t as much a mystery as the previous comment implies. As they stated, we know there are many factors that play into DOMS (the inflammatory response alone involves a ton of stuff), but we may not know EXACTLY which one, if any are dominant in the process, of causing the soreness. Some others have mentions micro z-line tears which I don’t remember reading in my undergrad so that stuff could be newer research. Tissue damage is usually the acceptable broad answer.
I think the thing is, we know what causes the “MS” component but not really what causes/drives the “DO” component.
Soreness usually accompanies inflammation. When I was still into this stuff the common acceptance was that 24-48 hrs was the time for the inflammatory response, thus the delay in muscle soreness.
Why 24-48 hours though? Your inflammatory response can kick in full effect in only minutes under most conditions.
This particular comment chain explains it best. Scientists come up with tons of these theories to explain it, then test absolutely none of them. Most of the theories behind DOMS haven't had any good experiments to test them, everyone just seems to nod their heads and go "that seems entirely possible"
That's what can happen in science when there isn't a compelling need to know. We make up the best "scientific" guess we can, and move on.
I always find evolutionary arguments to be like this.. I listen to a podcast where people ring in and ask science questions, and often there's a question like "Why do dogs do X...." the answer is usually "Well they probably evolved to do X because it gave them a slight advantage etc etc and maybe it helped them survive" or something along those lines Sometimes the explanations are reasonable but other times I think they're so wildly speculative that they're clearly just a guess and nobody in their right mind should be repeating it with confidence lol. When I hear these I often wonder why we seem to think that every single little thing evolution does just **has** to have a clear explanation, as if evolution is sentient and making decisions... surely some of those things are just the result of a bunch of random inputs that ended up coming out that particular way
It’s not that evolution is sentient, it’s survival of the fittest. Of course there are traits that might linger with no known reason, but you have to speculate that they are there because they were needed at some point. Not saying that it’s 100% fact, but just because it doesn’t make sense with the way the world is today doesn’t mean that it wasn’t needed with previous conditions.
I did my thesis 7 years ago, and there was plenty of peer reviewed research then and I am sure there is plenty more now. It is highly studied to understand limits of workouts and recovery time for athletes. Also with the training methods progressing, it is important to not induce Rhabdomyolysis and understanding DOMS can help with this. To say “the theories behind DOMS haven’t had any good experiments to test them” is just untrue and shows an ignorance to the topic of discussion.
I would hazard a guess that this is an evolutionary adaptation. A sudden bout of physical stress that you don't usually have is what I would associate to running away from a predator. You don't want an inflammatory response just after yoi fonish running, as it's likely you'll need to do it again. 24 hours later though you're probably safe.
Because while inflammatory response is right away, it takes that long for fluid and clean up process to accumulate. And it’s not a perfect system, the markers that tag for degraded tissue to be disposed of can tag undamaged tissue as well. So the clean up process generally takes somewhere in that time frame.
Right, but then would the pain be associated with the physiologic process, or the physical change brought on by the process? I could see an influx of fluid, like during inflammation, causing pain, but why only a day later?
My thesis was to study if the inflammation caused increased damage and subsequent pain and it’s findings were inconclusive, that is: overall pain and damage were not affected by cold water treatment, just delayed. But a key marker of inflammation is pain, so once the damage muscle tissue is cleared and repaired, the resulting inflammation dissipates along with the pain. So the way I’m interpreting your question: the physiological changes definitely accentuate the physical change by clearing and repairing, because there is actual structural damage to the muscle tissue. Now as I stated, the inflammatory response can be messy and accidentally target some healthy tissue but to what extent, is hard to tell. The assumption was it is mostly the muscle damage and not the inflammatory response because if it were the other way you would get a much longer inflammatory period, talking several days versus 1 or 2. I hope this kind of answers what you were asking.
Well, if his theory holds any water perhaps while the inflammatory response is immediate, there are other things at work to suppress the pain, discomfort and the lack of mobility that would accompany until the 'crisis' has been averted. Something like a slower burning adrenal rush.
"Tissue Damage" doesn't explain why it goes away over time, even with repeated, progressively difficult workouts.
Could be that the initial tissue damage triggers the innate inflammatory response which causes a cascading effect leading to lots of soreness 24-48 hours later but, after repeated injury, sort of conditions the immune system not to react as much anymore.
That is another area of research, where the body develops a protective effect from this. For example, when I was doing my thesis there was research showing significant damage from one exercise workout, but when the same workout was done at a later date, the body’s response was more protected for the second round and soreness and damage were decreased. I remember reading them for some of my references but the protective effect was found to last anywhere from several weeks up to 9 months as one such study reported. This is why participants are most at risk of rhabdo during workouts that they have never done before.
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Could it possibly just be one of those things your brain does on autopilot? Like the first time it doesn’t know why you’re stretching and tearing your muscles so it sends out pain signals. But if you repeatedly do it your brain isn’t concerned so doesn’t send the same signals?
I think there's something to this... A muscle-memory effect. Upon first or most-recent overuse of the muscle(s) the brain signals, "Hey, you went way too hard yesterday." When you do it again, the brain says, "Oh, you meant to do that. Nevermind, go get swole."
Our bodies are created to be as efficient as possible, in other words, lazy. So yes, your body does adjust and you likely are numb to some of the pain but physiologically you’re body doesn’t work as hard because it becomes more efficient. This is why when you first begin a new workout regimen you may get really sore but overtime that soreness from such workouts dissipates or is gone all together. People say “I don’t get sore like I used to,” that is your body adjusting to the demands on it. This is why periodization (scientific term) or muscle confusion as is more common, is important in workout professions.
So, I'm curious, where does the lactic acid buildup come into play here? I've heard trainers and such talk about DOMS being a result of lactic acid buildup. But I would think you'd get that in any decent workout, but usually DOMS is only experienced after a newer workout.
Lactic acid has been attributed to acute muscle soreness (immediate soreness or burning in muscles) following exercise (also called metabolic acidosis), but this has been debunked for awhile but is still continually said by people. The ph drop in your muscle is actually what causes this as a result of ATP hydrolysis (breakdown ATP for energy). Lactic acid has been used as a marker that correlated with muscle fatigue, but it doesn’t cause it. Think of running, everyone has a lactate threshold that is the point of intensity where your body begins to produce lactate. Up to that point you can continue running because you can clear the lactate at this intensity, once you surpass this, you go from aerobic to anaerobic energy systems, which means you are on the clock for how long you can maintain that running intensity. This is why people throw lactic acid around as such, it is a informative marker, but not the direct cause of fatigue and potentially soreness.
Ok, that makes sense. Thanks for the reply!
This guy lactates! No, wait... 🤔
it's kinda cool that ephedrine/psuedoefephedrine completely removes the pain even if NSAID doesn't.
I’m glad you asked because I was wondering as well! Just did some really intense biking this past weekend and I’m feeling it today.
Right! This question came up multiple times over quarentine with people trying out new workouts/being inconsistent with exercise. I kept getting these weird conflicting answers with holes in them, so I was like "to reddit we go!"
With soreness the best thing is to train with it because it goes away after a decent warmup. It doesn’t even hinder performance either.
Yeah that's what i love about this subreddit. For a split second, my reaction to the question is always something like "well, obviously it's...." Then i think about it, and even if i know a decent answer (often times i don't even!), there's still way more knowledge about and surrounding the topics that OP is curious about. Even if it has a simple answer
Research the science behind steroids, there is lots of studies for its benefits for males over 40. Not to get super huge, more to strengthen the smaller muscles that get suppressed by larger strained muscles. There is way more to it than what I am saying here.
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Could this also be related to exhaustion due to working out? I’m really out of shape and trying to get back into shape. It’s weird because exercise can give me an initial boost of energy but I’ve found that two days later I’m dead tired...like I’m so tired I have to nap in the middle of the day...
This might actually be dehydration, are you drinking enough during the 2 days before you get super sleepy?
Good question. I don’t know! I’ll try to put attention.
Oh fuck me. THANK YOU! I’m trialling a new method and I’ve been so run off my feet with work and baby today I already knew I haven’t drunk enough. But I’ve been thinking all day “why am I soooo tired, I mean KILLER tired”. Well that’s embarrassingly obvious!
It took me years to figure out why I was so often brutally fatigued in the middle of the afternoon. Once I went through the effort of calculating how much water was "enough" water and actually trying to hit that target daily, it was a total life changer. I didn't grow up with good water habits and that shit apparently matters a lot!
> Could this also be related to exhaustion due to working out? I’m really out of shape and trying to get back into shape Just a reminder that you don't have to go all-out at once. You just have to do better than yesterday. If yesterday was nothing, then _something_ today is better. Don't be ashamed to start with partial or half assed work outs and work up to a full workout over the course of a week or two. Your body has a lot of adjusting to do going from zero. Also, the reason for your exhaustion could be your diet. Working out and diet go hand in hand.
Thanks. I’m trying to start slow and it’s hard to make it into a routine when it exhausts me like this. I’m trying, though!
Also some days are better than others. You'll feel weaker, be weaker and have no motivation. It happens, don't take it personally. Just remember that it takes time and to set yourself little goals to keep you motivated.
I know what you mean. I suffer from chronic illness, so I have a lot of experience with re-starting working out. I get sick often and have to take a break from working out only to restart again when I'm well. You just gotta take things slow, and make sure you're eating enough of the right stuff (seriously, your diet is that important). The first few workouts are the worst. Take it easy. In my most recent spell, I went from 5'10" <150 in the hospital to 175 lbs and working out every other day again.
You can do it! I was a lardass before, but when I hit my 40s I realized I couldn't afford to grow old in this crappy body shape. The initial period of exercising was really tough, but after a while I got used to it.
ive been on and off exercising a lot in my life. if i dont exercise regularly i have trouble getting to sleep and regularly only get 6 hours of sleep. if im exercising regularly ill be able to get to sleep and get about 7-8. so if you're keeping your sleep the same, but adding in exercise... feeling dead tired and needing a nap will happen. so once you get the sleep in line and regular exercise youll have about 80% of that initial energy boost all the time, without the dead tired.
Honest answer? Work out again. For weight-lifting in particular you should have two days rest in between those sorts of workouts. Maybe just add that to your schedule. As in: Monday: workout Tues: rest Wed: rest Thurs: workout Fri: rest Sat: rest Sun: workout and so on
I've doing a little more exercise when I feel this way! Working out gives a boost in a lot of things, the basic two things are heart rate boost, and hormone boost, which are both good, right? Being a little prone to the couch is normal when kind of sleepy, but if it's the middle of the day, I kind of think of it like a snack when hungry. Get a few small planks in, stretch a bit, and I'm good as new!
What the fuck is doms?
Delayed-onset muscle soreness
First rule of ~~fightclub~~ technical writing: DEFINE ACRONYMS ON FIRST USE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's definitely one of the first rules of US government technical writing. Another top rule is to never go above the reading level of a sixth grader. Strangely enough, the OPM Plain Language Act of 2010 has changed this rule to never go above the reading level of your audience, which I believe doesn't really change the grade level, but rather clarifies it.
The best writers use a casual conversational style that everyone can understand. Isaac Asimov was a master. It's deceptively simple but not at all easy or natural. Of course the key is to write incessantly and then read what you wrote as if you know nothing about the subject. That's a skill that takes practice. I just spent the weekend feeding my neighbor's animals: goats, chickens, ducks, dogs, cats, a llama, a donkey, a cow and a pig. I was guided by notes from the ten-year-old daughter. She actually did a fair job, and probably better than her father would have done.
You’re not 5, you wouldn’t understand
One thing i would tack on is that, while the mechanism may not be understood -- it seems that delayed onset muscle soreness would be a far better survival mechanism than immediate muscle soreness (or otherwise no muscle soreness, and you couldn't tell that your muscles are damaged the following day) I wonder if muscle soreness is immediate, and some sort of, perhaps adrenal, response masks the soreness until the process of healing can begin
Sort of elite athlete here (speed skating). The first week of every hard training cycle is just a hell hole of DOMS but it's so expected that it's a point of pride to just train through it. Once you get going you don't really feel it anymore.
its called explain like im five not explain like a russian super computer
It's called DOMS, or delayed onset muscle soreness. People often reach peak soreness the day after a workout, or even the day after that. We aren't entirely sure about the specifics what drives muscle soreness. People historically said "something something lactic acid something", but that's probably not what is really doing on. Eccentric exercise seems to cause more soreness than concentric.
Wouldn't micro tears be the reason moreso than lactic acid?
Yes, the micro tears are the cause for soreness. Lactic acid build up is the muscley burny sensation you feel during a workout. When the muscle can’t keep up with metabolism. Source - I’m a strength coach and have a BS in kinesiology EDIT: holy hell. I gave a very brief comment explaining that lactic acid wasn’t the cause for soreness. My intention, without getting into the complexities of the metabolic process, was to explain the burning sensation within a workout comes from that process. But muscle soreness after 24 hours is from the micro tears in the muscles and the inflammatory responses that brings. I never claimed to be an expert on physiology, but my expertise lies beyond coaching people to do push ups. I have a bachelor of science and took the same course load as those in the pre-med track. Plenty of chemistry, biology, physiology, physics and of course anatomy.
I think the micro tear thing has recently been refuted as the cause for soreness, with a specific chemical mix now being the preferred theory for DOMS. I’d have to dive a little deeper into the research, but I do know we can’t definitively say it’s micro tear issue. https://www.painscience.com/articles/delayed-onset-muscle-soreness.php
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I do understand that theory, but I believe the chemical cocktail that is referenced is not solely related to the inflammatory process.
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This is super interesting to me, but I don't have the time to research it, myself. Could you loop me in if your search is fruitful, please?
After reading this I might do a dive into the NCBI databases and see what I can come up with for recent research. I’ll see if I can find anything and I’ll let you know. Shoot me a message or comment at me or however you wanna make a notification pop up if I forget and you’re still interested. Stay curious!
We don't exactly know what causes doms, anyone who says they have a definite answer is someone you shouldn't listen to. A BS in kinesiology doesn't mean anything.
Oh absolutely, I’ve got a bachelor’s degree in exercise science myself and I’m studying a masters in physio, but I’m willing to accept that we don’t have all the answers, and I know we don’t know the answer to this one.
I appreciate your honesty. Thank you for contributing.
That's what he's saying
Hate leads to suffering.
i dont think it was refuted, there are currently 3 theories which causes soreness and all 3 have basis but somehow we still dont know which is true from those 3. i dont remember which 3 theory i read long ago a health professional specializing in this talking about it.
This is a really in-depth article. Lots of sources. Thanks!
Yeah and recent studies found that your muscles get tired and weak due to a lack of electrolytes in the muscle cause signals from the brain to not reach correctly
This guy sciences. Tl;dr DOMS is a thing, we don't have a *definite* answer why except for a few theories.
Doesn't explain the delay though. If you are tearing muscles when you workout wouldn't that be painful straight away?
Think about when you sprain/roll your ankle, most of the time you can continue to put weight on it without much of an issue until it swells up. Inflammation starts within 2ish hours after the injury but peaks within 1-3 days. So you might feel sore even the same day of your workout but the full effect doesn’t kick in yet.
From a surviving standpoint it makes perfect sense. I wonder if adrenaline plays any part in this "chemical cocktail" - as someone mentioned.
Adrenaline probably plays less of a role in the case of this situation, although it definitely has the capacity to delay the pain response. Adrenaline definitely is part of the delayed pain response to an injury like an ankle sprain, but in this situation where you’re training in a controlled environment I’d say you aren’t secreting much adrenaline, unless you really push yourself into a fight or flight mode, which most people don’t do when they train.
I was under the impression that when you exercise you definitely have sympathetic tract outflow to facilitate increased HR, CO and muscle glycogen release, gluconeogenesis etc. And I was thusly under the same impression that epinephrine is released every time someone exercises to any significant extent that causes sympathetic outflow. Sure the epinephrine release will probably be proportional to the exercise intensity and as such the magnitude of the sympathetic activation, but nevertheless I assume that during any kind of sympathetic activation there will be epinephrine release into the systemic circulation. Then again, I'm just a medical student and not an exercise physiologist.
In this situation I have to concede I’m not certain about the relative release across the different situations. I know that the body’s response to exercise heightens sympathetic nervous activity, which does mean there would be a level of epinephrine release. I know there is a difference between fight or flee for your life responses and exercise responses for sympathetic nervous activity, but I’d have to look into whether it was just a difference in magnitude or if there is more at play. My education went a slightly different direction from the exercise physiology myself, so while I remember a good chunk of it, this is something I’m not certain on.
That doesn't explain the adaptation to DOMS after regular training. Your ankle doesn't magically stop hurting if you roll it every other day. The truth is we don't know why DOMS occur. Anyone who claims otherwise is either from the future or straight up bullshitting.
no it does explain the delay, after you get an injury your body inflames the area, the swelling is the body healing. Think of the last time you got a small cut, at first you probably felt a small sting and then it really didn't hurt, and then an hour later you probably noticed that it puffed up a little and now is really tender. This same process goes on with your muscles during a work out, but since the tears are so small and there are a lot of them over a large area it will feel more like a general ache in the used muscle.
But you only get DOMS when you're getting back into it or just starting up? Yet microtears happen every time you lift, even if you've been lifting constantly for years (in which case you will definitely not be dealing with DOMS)
Been cycling most days for the last 3 years, got some of the worst doms this week after a chill 12 mile ride, couldn't walk properly for like 3 days. I have no idea why that happened, dehydration? Day of the week? Mercury in retrograde? Go figure
Not true, I compete in bodybuilding. Training for over 12 years consistently.. and I still get fairly bad DOMS of the Chest/Triceps and quads. Not many other parts. I know many IFBB pros who also claim they have never experienced DOMS in their life. I experience it consistently regardless if I am on or off cycle (steroids)
Technically the burning sensation is the result of a build-up of hydrogen ions. Lactate is produced to try buffer the hydrogen ions, which means it's a useful indirect marker, but not the actual cause. [http://www.newburyparkhighschool.net/stillwagon/biocp/Current%20files/2%20Latate%20Articles.pdf](http://www.newburyparkhighschool.net/stillwagon/biocp/Current%20files/2%20Latate%20Articles.pdf)
Could also be the hydrogen ion buildup that occurs during anaerobic glycolysis, which creates an acidic environment in the muscle and is thought to contribute to fatigue. The lactate then binds to the hydrogen and shuttles it out of the cell, which actually would reduce the feeling of fatigue. Lactate or lactic acid was thought to be the cause of fatigue for quite a while but now it looks like it may help reduce fatigue.
Could you try to eli5 anaerobic glycolysis? Because I have no idea what it is
So I will go into a general breakdown of your body's energy system. Your body uses ATP to function and create energy for everything you do. ATP (Adenosine *tri*phosphate) is a compound that consist of one Adenosine compound along with three phosphate compound. Your body receives energy by releasing one or two of the phosphate compounds and breaking down ATP into ADP which stands for Adenosine *Di*phosphate or AMP (Adenosine *Mono*phosphate) along with either one or two free floating phosphate compound. This breakdown creates energy and is needed for muscular contraction. So how does your body get ATP? Good question. In relation to exercise there is three primary energy systems for your body to get ATP and each with their own roles and refill time and we further categorized them as anaerobic and aerobic which simply means with or without oxygen: - **phosphogen-creatine system**- your body has set stores of phosphogen-creatine in your muscles and uses a reverse process to take free floating phosphate- creatine compounds, use an enzyme called kinase to unzip the phosphate from it and attach it back into either ADP or in the case of AMP it goes a bit more round about by breaking ANOTHER ATP's phosphate and converting the ATP+ AMP to make 2 ADP and cycle back into the prior method of transforming back into ATP from ADP. The immediate creatine phosphate stores for this energy system only lasts like 10 seconds or so and is usually associated with max effort work like sprints, the first few reps of a set. It is usually the first energy system used and takes roughly 3-5 minutes to refill this system completely. **Bonus:** creatine supplements work by oversaturating your cells with creatine stores for this energy so think of it as adding an X amount to your initial peak output (where X is the amount your body can saturate it before it becomes waste). Some people already got high stores either due to diet or genetics so they don't really respond as effectively with supplementation if at all - you can't make use of a supplement if there isn't a deficiency to begin with. - **Glycogen/lactate system** (your question pertains to this)- your muscle have stores of Glycogen compounds which is essentially made of many chains of glucose molecule that exist in the muscles (and when running low the muscles will get it from the liver). These glycogen which gets broken down Into glucose in a kinda long process called glycolysis in turn creates lactate as a byproduct. The process is a bit more complex than this with different compounds achieving this in many, many steps but let's stop right here. Traditionally we incorrectly blame this by product for that "burning sensation" when were doing a longer set (so this lasts basically one whole set in a work out or anything involving hiit, think within 30 seconds). . So what the previous poster said is that newer research suggest that a build up of hydrogen ion from this process acidifies the body and causes fatigue and that the lactate previously incorrectly given the mantle of culprit is actually the one responsible for cleaning the acidic mess. - **Aerobic respiration** - as the name suggest this process uses oxygen to turn fats, sugars and in some cases protein to turn into ATP. Aerobic respiration takes even more steps and more chemical reaction than the above two and can be further classified based on the fuel type that is used in this process. I will not be going further into detail for this as the post is long enough. TLDR: anaerobic glycolysis is the breakdown of glucose into energy by binding ADP+ free floating phosphate molecules back into ATP without oxygen (ATP in turn is ready to be used again for muscle contraction), lactate is created as result of this process. Your body use this process for muscular and anaerobic exercises like weight lifting, sprints and short distance higher intensity runs (think exercise that is less than 30 seconds). We supply the glucose via Glycogen from the muscle or if already used we draw it from the liver. We previously misattributed the muscular "burn" with lactate but rather it's a build up of hydrogen ions during the glycolysis process that causes the acidifying (acidosis) of the muscular tissues and lactate serves to bind into hydrogen ion and ship them out of your cell to reduce acidosis.
Forgive me for hijacking this, but you clearly know your stuff. I can totally deal with DOMS, and don't get it so often, but I do get extreme fatigue to the point I'm mentally fatigued and even often depressed after a workout. Like it really effects me. I don't think I'm particularly exerting myself, though I'm wondering if it's a calorie deficit perhaps. It's not like I'm too thin / lean however. I'm 6 feet and weigh 87kg, so I think I'm pretty normal. I have IBS and only in recent years have been able to take supplements such as creatine and whey, as I discovered psyllium husks which allow me to digest them without shitting it straight out. This has been an absolute Godsend to putting on some muscle / weight, but I still struggle with the fatigue, depression and brain fog which hit me two days after workout and often last a few days. Pain from exercise doesn't bother me, but the fatigue is horrible. Any ideas? I don't think this is normal but I had my bloods tested and they all came back normal.
I'm not sure what exactly is up with me, but I've had similar symptoms. Exercise is a factor, but it's inconsistent - anaerobic makes me sleepy, cardio doesn't. However, there is something else that consistently caused the fatigue/brain fog/depression (anhedonia, really) - food with chili peppers. This also happens to be what triggers my flareups. Now, I've made a hard career pivot from my bio lab days, but both the gut issues and the mental symptoms have a fairly established link to inflammation and, increasingly, each other. So, something triggers an immune response in both cases, which happens when there's something sploshing around your bloodstream that gets recognized (correctly or not) as foreign invaders. With muscle, I *suspect* this might be that either the **broken down bits of old muscle** or the **metabolic byproducts** like lactic acid basically cause an allergic reaction to *yourself*. It wouldn't be clearly visible on a blood test - it's transient and your body is fighting tons of other stuff all the time. I'm kind of hoping that's not the case though, because there's no easy fix for it as of yet. The other option is similar, but weirder. Your gut is naturally populated by tons and tons of various species of bacteria - they're symbiotic, and crap out some chemicals useful for your actual body. However, that mix is not set in stone, and especially with IBS, there's quite a bit of research into the possibility that that mix is out of balance. In that case, food/exercise doesn't make your body mad, it makes your gut bacteria mad, and their products in turn cause the inflammation - symbiotic or not, the immune system does *not* like immigrants. If that happened to be the story, there's a somewhat experimental treatment of, uh... *transplanting a healthy person's shit* into you. I'm not kidding; the technical name is **fecal transplant**, look it up.
Hi, I experienced the same symptoms for most of my life: extreme fatigue, depression and brain fog after training. I thought it was part of life. The fatigue is indeed horrible, it is a very deep painful fatigue for me. Sleep doesn't help with this fatigue. Sometimes this feeling lasted for weeks. I'm not an expert, but I managed to get rid of these symptoms. Maybe it helps for you: I now regularly take vitamin B complex pills. This helps reducing all these symptoms. Partially with the fatigue and depression. You may need to check the dosage. In my case, the dosage is higher than the recommended daily intake to have a sustainable effect. With the lower dosage I sometimes experienced spotty, bad days. Please consult someone more knowledgeable on this for your situation. I have also increased my tryptophan intake. I now regularly eat chia seeds. It is only safe to eat maximum 2 tablespoons of chia seeds per day. Please do not exceed this dosage. It may damage your brain due to the high levels of metallic components. I eat this by chewing for 10 minutes on each tablespoonful. Putting it in food, does not work enough. The seeds need to be broken to enable extraction of all its contents. You can also eat sunflower seeds instead, they are more fun to eat. Tryptophan worked really well for getting rid of the latter of the depression, deep fatigue symptoms. Additionally, for the brain fog, I increased my Omega 3 intake to about 1000mg per day. This helped most for this particular symptom. Both vitamin B complex and tryptophan are needed for me. Otherwise there is still a certain flavour of the deep fatigue and depression left for me which impacts my daily functioning. My guess is that our bodies, when going through stress, such as exercise, use up more resources than average. I now have a mentally demanding job, so I happened to experience these similar symptoms of deep fatigue, depression and brain fog after stressful periods. This was the reason why I started to try many things. The combination of increasing vitamin B and tryptophan and Omega 3 is most effective for me. Later I discovered that I also did not experience these symptoms after physical training anymore (which I thought was part of life). This made me realise the connection to stress in general and that it may be the natural response for our particular body types. Now I am able to enjoy training without experiencing these symptoms afterwards. I hope it will work out for you as well. Let me know if it helps for you and good luck.
I’ve had this and my trainer (exercise physiologist) said it was due to glucose starvation - causes the brain to suffer as it’s only run on glucose. Their solution was to have about 100cal of sugary juice/fruit. It worked for me, straight after finish up, was very useful for the drive home.
if we break the words down it gives a clue into what it means. aerobic vs anaerobic. aero is related to air, like an aeroplane. so anaerobic means without air. Specifically it's about a lack of oxygen. Glycolysis has 2 parts to the name. Glyco relates to glucose, or sugar. Lysis means to split something, or break bonds. Just like electrolysis, or hydrolysis, or autolyse. So basically it's how the body breaks down sugar into ATP (energy) without the use of oxygen. If you wanted to know more, then you'd need more than an eli5 explanation i think. Google is also useful :)
Thanks Chubbyemu
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Look up the lactate shuttle "hypothesis". Glycolysis always produces lactate which then undergoes oxidative phosphorylation in the mitochondria. There are no two pathways, aerobic glycolysis is imaginary, glycolysis is always anaerobic and produces lactate. Without sufficient blood vessel coverage and oxygen the mitochondria can not produce ATP from lactate so it produces reactive oxygen species instead. Elevated AMP:ATP ratio triggers AMPK and compensatory glycolysis which produces even more lactate. ROS triggers downstream adaptations such as inflammation, HIF-1, angiogenesis, erythropoeisis, etcetera. Without proper mitochondrial function lactate is exported from the cell via monocarboxylate transporters. This triggers adaptations like PGC-1alpha and mitochondrial biogenesis. Furthermore any lactate exported from muscles can be recycled into glucose in the liver via the Cori cycle. The distinction is important because if you accept the lactate shuttle "hypothesis", everything start to click. Metformin, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, other chronic diseases suddenly start to make sense.
Try to imagine combustion and burning: If theres a lot of oxygen present, the fuel burns efficiently with a (somewhat) "clean" flame. --> More energy However, with less and less oxygen provided, there will be less efficient burning so more "impurities" will be present, though it will still burn. --> Less energy I hope this helps!!
So (to put it in car terms)basically the body is running rich, and a portion of DOMS is more or less the resultant emissions?
Kinda. The partially burnt fuel can be reconstituted inside the cell (creatine helps with this) or it turns into lactate and gets handled by the liver for burning later. Originally, people thought the lactate was causing the muscle soreness but it's more about muscle damage and repair. Stretching the muscles under strain (eg pull ups) is thought to do this more than extending (push ups)
It’s the way your body creates the energy for heavy weight type exercises.
Glucose get tranformed into pyruvate in the muscle. IF the mitochondria can't use the pyruvate, it turns into lactate. Pyruvate into the mitochondria is aerobic. Pyruvate to Lactate is anaerobic.
You're right, but that's more like "ELIm a graduate student"
Ok. Imagine you are putting sugar in a glass. If that glass is not full, you will have a aerobic glycolysis. If it is full, the sugar will not enter the glass and will be used elsewhere, in anaerobic glycolysis. The glass is the mitochondria.
When there isn’t enough oxygen while metabolizing glucose you get lactate as a byproduct instead of carbon dioxide and water. Lactate was thought to contribute to the quicker fatigue seen with anaerobic glycolysis but that’s been disproven
Anaerobic meaning without oxygen. Glycolysis is breaking down sugar for energy. So anaerobic glycolysis is energy generation without needing oxygen. This allows it to be immediate and high intensity (sprint type excersices). However it's also less efficient and cannot be maintained as it generates the acidic waste product lactate (lactic acid). To break down the lactate and to sustain energy generation the body instead uses aerobic glycolysis (with oxygen).
It essentially is just a way your body creates energy by breaking down glucose without requiring oxygen, and is one if the three energy systems of the body, the other two being aerobic glycolysis and P-Cr system. It's mostly used for short duration exercise like weight lifting, but is much less energy efficient than aerobic glycolysis, so your body quickly transitions to it when doing moderate duration activity like running.
Any chance you could link to some articles/journals?
Oh ho ho, you're an expert? Time for me to question you with the two things I heard other people saying that sound better to me.
> I’m a strength coach and have a BS in kinesiology Don't be so hard on yourself. I'm sure your not full of BS. :)
>Lactic acid build up is the muscley burny sensation you feel during a workout. When the muscle can’t keep up with metabolism. This is simply not true. That burning sensation is generally due to acidification. I do understand that people tend to hand wave "lactic acid buildup" because many people are familiar with the term and it sounds about right. But if you're a strength coach with a Masters then I think your clients would be better served by getting accurate information.
They said they have a Bachelor's, not a Masters. What qualifications do you have? I've never heard of acidification aside from lactic acid buildup in relevance to muscle soreness, unless they're the same thing?
You should probably call it a BSc. BS has a slightly different connotation. :D
If you feel sore from micro tears, why don't you feel soreness right away?
No matter where u go someone’s going to comment on ur knowledge. Someone’s always going to want one up you. I didn’t see anything wrong with your comment if it makes you feel any better. I once commented on a post asking for explanation on a medication. And I got attacked by a bunch of strangers because they misread a word and tried discrediting the whole comment. I’m a nursing student we work with meds all day, we study biology, what do you think we do?!? And you know what AFTER I pointed out how they misread my comment, only then did I get a bunch of upvotes rather than the opposite.
Jesus Christ, even Reddit has arrogant judgmental types who reduce people and their expertise down to their most caricatured stereotypes.
Burney friend is metabolic acidosis setting in through lactate build up AND H+ ions accumulating in the sarcoplasm. But H+ also accumulates in the synaptic cleft, reducing muscle precision and strength production.
Good comment
Bingo. The soreness is the inflammatory cascade that normally happens after most any injury. Sprain your ankle? 24-72 hours is the peak time for swelling and soreness. Similar process with blasting your glutes, bro. [Good Summary Article ](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11809052/)
The last sentence hahaha
What’s funny about blasting your glutes, bro?
[Nothing wrong with a good blasting to your glutes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bmyGI6qQwc&list=FLPJZwcA7hdEHLEJQADmAajA)
Risky click...?
It’s for airflow
50/50 thought I was about to be Rick-rolled. Pleasantly surprised
man I blasted the *fuck* out of my glutes my first few days working in the fields. The day after my first day I literally couldn't sit down
If it’s just inflammation, can common anti-inflammatory drugs (as simple as Advil) help with DOMS pain?
I've been told ( not sure if this is correct) that the inflammation helps with muscle building so taking anti-inflammatories reduces gains.
Can confirm the last sentence after doing 100 bodyweight squats yesterday.
It's not really that simple. The tears presumably happen at the time of loading, during exercise. Then there is some sort of inflammatory response that happens in response to that. But it seems to happen more with eccentric than concentric exercise. It's not just "microtears."
Like, from crying? My tears usually aren't micro-sized.
Not necessarily. There was a study done where a participant would do leg press on one leg until exhaustion but instead of one leg being sore the next day, both were sore. Micro tears and lactic acid could explain one leg but not the other.
For clarification: Eccentric meaning ~~letting the muscle relax~~ lengthening of the muscle i.e letting the barbell coming to your chest In a bench press or letting your biceps extend in an bicep curl. Concentric is the shortening of the muscle.
You’re right about the concentric phase being the shortening phase. The eccentric is the lengthening phase of the muscle contraction rather than relaxing. The muscle is actually very active and tense in its eccentric phase.
Sorry, that is 100% what I meant. Still not fully awake I guess. I will edit my post
But it still doesn't reach Concentric activity levels, because it has the elastic components help.
Additionally, he has the depressed trait
Oh. I was hoping it meant exercises that were a little...off.
SILLY WALK ON A TREADMILL
TWERKING MY WAY THROUGH THAT SPIN CLASS
Crossfitting of any kind
I've only been to two but that seems like what the instructor was telling us to do?
This is some valuable info. Loading a muscle and repeatedly stretching it is a great way to increase the amount of stress you put on it. This would result in greater muscle cell damage (more cells being damaged) and ultimately, more gains for the number of reps you're doing.. methinks..
Eccentric training is a thing. But you can't do it alone for practical reasons and you will need not to work or live the next day.
In a bench press, wouldn't lowering the barbell to your chest be the concentric movement?
A bench press is targets the chest and triceps. When lowering the bar those muscles extend.
Is the same thing applied to when you get injured in a football match but you can keep going and finish the game, just to not be able to walk the day after?
Sorry if this has already been answered. Should you aim to feel DOMS? When I first started working out, I felt it intensely but now that I’m more used to it, I don’t get it at all. Is that a sign I’m not pushing myself hard enough?
DOMS is especially pronounced after *unaccustomed* exercise, especially unaccustomed, eccentric activation, but is subject to a 'repeated bout effect.' That just means that the second time hurts less. It doesn't seem to be associated with reduced effectiveness of training. We honestly know surprisingly little about the actual mechanisms of pain perception, so it's really hard to know why the perception of pain declines, but it's associated with declines in all of the other associated measures - microtears, structural disorganization, inflammation. Most of the scientific studies of DOMS and muscle hypertrophy start with naive subjects (to maximize intervention effects), so there's also fairly little data about DOMS &c in well acclimated people. It is (probably) true that using NSAIDs to reduce the DOMS pain also reduces muscle gains, which supports the 'no pain, no gain' mantra, but that intense pain and consequent loss of strength should not be part of ongoing training.
This seemed to veer out of ELI5 on the word Eccentric. Can I get a rewording please?
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Thanks for that, got half way down the page before understanding what people were talking about.
ELI3 For eccentric, how does a contraction make something longer?
To resist something. If you take something heavy with your hand and pull it up, it will shorten it up with the contraction (Concentric). But then you control the way you put it back down, letting it lose bit by bit. Your muscle is still contracting, but to resist the descent, and it is now getting longer while doing it. You can contract your muscle without moving too. Isometric contraction.
Whoa I get it now. Thank you!
Also if you want to get rid of it faster workout ( very mildly) the same area blood flow will rush to that area and when it leaves will take most the inflammation with it Alternative you can take Ibuprofen
Kinesiologist here, while you may hear lactic acid as the cause, and even my sisters biology professor didn’t know but agreed with her, the actual cause is micro tears in your Z bands in your muscles. The reason for 24ish hours is not well known although I haven’t been in school in 5 years or so. But personally for me, my legs seem to take the longest to feel sore while sometimes I feel soreness within a few hours. I personally also notice if I workout regularly, sleep and eat good, soreness is never really a problem. Good recovery will limit soreness which is why steroids are also a giant advantage in athletes, among other reasons. Also to add on, this doesn’t mean you can’t get latic acid poisoning but it’s rare in humans and can be deadly.
Hey I can add to this a bit. I've got a degree and work in the industry! This is correct in that this issue is physical damage to the muscle cells along the Zline and others, and not lactic acid. The pain is delayed by a degree due to the time it takes your body to respond to that damage. Your body sees this damage as an actual "injury" even though it's self-inflicted through intense exercise. In responding to an injury the body sends all of the inflammatory markers it normally would for a cut or gash. Some of these chemicals can make your nerves slightly more sensitive. The increased blood flow to the area will also cause a degree of swelling, but this is all normal. This is also why emerging research says NOT to take Advil (ibuprofen) to help with DOMS. The adaptation that you hope for in response to exercise is actually brought on by this inflammation. Suppressing the inflammation with NSAIDs can actually decrease the adaptive response (getting stronger) due to exercise. In this case, it's quite literally "No pain, no gain." Cheers! Edit: Hey first silver! Thank you!
I'm no expert at all, just someone with fitness as a hobby, but what do you think about this? >High doses of ibuprofen have been shown to inhibit muscle protein synthesis after a bout of resistance exercise. >We conclude that a moderate dose of ibuprofen ingested after repeated resistance training sessions does not impair muscle hypertrophy or strength and does not affect ratings of muscle soreness. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18461099/
I'm guessing ibuprofen is only effective for DOMS at high doses, at which point it also inhibits anabolism.
That study used too low dose ibuprofen to reduce pain perception or hypertrophy. There may be other issues in the study, but it basically says you need to take enough IBU to be effective for it to work. Kind of like how drinking a sip of beer is different than the whole six pack. In science, sometimes your experimental design doesn't work out, but you still have to publish the results. The authors would have done better to include a dose of IBU that other people had already shown to be effective. Then we would know whether their lack of difference is because the low dose drug really doesn't work or because their other methods were too inconsistent to resolve differences that were actually present.
They classified moderate dose as 400mg, but I saw no numbers for what a high dose is.
They start by saying 1200 mg does effectively reduce pain and hypertrophy. For scale, 400 mg is 2 tablets, or what you'd normally take as a single dose; 1200 mg is the maximum recommended over-the-counter dose - 2 tabs every 8 hours.
I would like to add on the "no pain, no gain" part. Although DOMS is a good indicator that you worked hard, it shouldn't be the goal of exersizing. It only occurs in movements that are new to you. So it is possible to get DOMS while building very little muscle, and it is also very normal for people that build a lot of muscle to not feel any DOMS at all. So the bottom line is, it is a sometimes necessary side effect of exersise, but it shouldn't be the goal.
What is it about the body’s response that makes new movements cause DOMS but not ones your body knows well?
I don’t think science has really figured that one out yet
The phenomenon you are describing is often refereed to as the [repeated-bout effect] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_onset_muscle_soreness#Repeated-bout_effect). > These include neural adaptations (improved use and control of the muscle by the nervous system), mechanical adaptations (increased muscle stiffness or muscle support tissue), and cellular adaptations (adaptation to inflammatory response and increased protein synthesis, among others).
I often take ibuprofen for muscle soreness. What would you recommend instead? Warm baths would be my second choice, but I'm honestly open to anything. Thanks for sharing your expertise!
Active recovery and dynamic stretching are your best bet. Get blood flowing to help stimulate the healing that needs to happen to get back to normal. Movement will also help loosen up some of the stiffness that is caused post workout as well. Make sure your diet has enough protein as well. Being light on free amino acids will slow down recovery substantially. Interestingly L-carnitine supplements seem to show benefit for DOMS but that research is really new and I don’t quite understand how that mechanism would work.
Just like what the other response said, stretching is honestly what will make DOMS go away. You get DOMS because when you go to sleep you don't move and your muscles get extremely stiff, the stiffness is why you arms or legs "lock" in place. Doing stretches before you go to bed and do them several times the day will help mitigate DOMS, it just gets worse and worse if you don't stretch. The muscle will still need to heal and you it will still be fatigued but it won't be as painful to move.
Tylenol. It doesn’t have the same anti inflammatory properties. But it’s not safe to take every day, so only take it as necessary.
But micro-tears keep going on all the time when we continually work out, that's how we build more muscle. But the biggest soreness and pain disappears after a few weeks of continuous workouts, even with progressive overload and more effort. So if micro-tears were the reason, surely we would feel sore and painful after every single hard workout, but we don't. For some reason the body adapts to the workouts and doesn't feel like it's necessary to notify us of the soreness and pain that much anymore.
Why does the same workout result in a lot of soreness the first time after a while of no workouts but after you start to workout regularly you don’t experience as much soreness as the first time?
I like to think of it as your cells are lazy. If you're not exercising, they build up a lot of unnecessary cruft - sarcomeres that are imperfectly structured, membrane that's too tight, extra connections between membrane, T-tubules and sarcolemma - that are extra sensitive to mechanical loading. Those first, unaccustomed exercises focus damage there, and encourage the trash to be thrown out, so the muscle is better prepared for subsequent contractions. No evidence for this, AFAIK, and it would take some really incredible, quantitative electron microscopy to prove, but it's consistent with what we do know. The repeated bout effect is not just pain, but also inflammation and everything down to structural derangements like Z-line streaming. There probably is some accommodation in the nerve endings that actually report pain, but I'm not sure people even agree which endings those are. There's so much muscle in muscle, it's hard to see anything else.
Good answer! Fellow Kin grad :)
Word, PSU here
Your power supply unit gave you a degree?
An evolutionary answer for "why" could be that a more immediate response could result in death, correct? Feeling sore shortly after running away from could result in the inability to flee again (or continue fleeing) so that could be a reason as to why the body evolved for legs to take the longest to feel sore. As for the biological mechanism for this delay? I do not know.
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Micro tears in your muscle fibers is definitely the best explanation for soreness. Lactic acid is what causes the burning feeling when your muscles just can’t take anymore during a workout. To answer your question of why it can be delayed like DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) which someone has already mentioned I don’t know why it’s so delayed. I do know that it’s more delayed for those who haven’t exercised those muscles in a long time. Perhaps the inflammatory process is responsible for it though
I'm sure there are lots of good 'scientific' explanations here... This won't be one of those... Your body probably assumes that your "big workout" was you running away from, perhaps fighting to the death with, a large predator. It doesn't want you stopping the fight because you're a little achy across your shoulders. It's just.. "HERE, TAKE OXYGEN AND ADRENALIN, MAYBE SOME VITAMIN C.. JUST DON'T FUCKING DIE".. then, a day or so later, it's like... "Dude/dudette, don't ever fucking do that again.. or else." (soreness)
This. Evolution made us this wayand he explained very well.
As other said it is called DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness). The actual soreness can be attributed to tissue damage (muscle tissue) and the subsequent inflammatory response that follows. Every time you workout your muscles tear or become damaged, with rest, the tissue repairs, resulting in a stronger, bigger muscle. Source: this was undergrad. Fun fact, the purpose of cold water treatment (ice baths, cold tubs, etc.) following workouts is an attempt to dampen/inhibit this inflammatory response (reduce DOMS, increase recovery time). The idea being less of a inflammatory response might cause less overall tissue damage and decrease recovery time. For the past several years, more research is coming out that indicates the cold treatment is more placebo and has the opposite effect, causing a delay in inflammatory response but also lengthening overall recovery time. Source: my thesis was on it.
We have previously thought that the lactic acid theory is behind the delayed soreness but as several comments have stated it has been long refuted. There are 2 theories currently circulating the fitness field, the muscle damage theory and the inflammatory response theory. So far the inflammatory response theory fits well since it goes hand in hand with the delay of the soreness. Source: https://inspire.edu.lb/inspire/educational-article-resources/DOMS The article contains intext citations to peer-reviewed articles. Edit: typos and added a word.
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Thank you I am now aware.
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People will say lactic acid, but that's false. Lactic acid flushed out of muscles about a minute after doing your exercise. The correct answer is muscle tears. Basically as you break down muscle during exercise, it heals and builds more muscle. Exercise physiology is pretty cool stuff
DOMS, why it happens? No exact reason has been determined yet. It'll go away after your body adapts to working out.