Sports medicine generally divides muscle soreness caused by exercise into two types: one is that the pain appears immediately after exercise, but disappears soon, which is called acute muscle soreness. The other is that it appears only a few hours or one night after exercise, accompanied by fatigue and fatigue, and even muscle spasm, stiffness and other symptoms. This kind of muscle pain disappears slowly, and it often takes 3 ~ 4 days or even 6 ~ 7 days to fully recover. This symptom is called delayed muscle pain or fatigue after exercise.

Acute muscle soreness is generally explained by lactic acid accumulation. "Muscle movement is like a machine that needs energy supply. However, the energy needed by muscles is not electrical energy and thermal energy, but chemical energy released by the oxidation of energy substances such as sugar and fat in the body. " In the case of sufficient oxygen, such as when the human body is resting, the sugar in the muscle is directly decomposed into carbon dioxide and water to release a lot of energy. However, when the human body is in strenuous activity, skeletal muscle needs a lot of energy urgently. Although the respiratory movement and blood circulation are greatly strengthened at this time, it still cannot meet the demand of muscle tissue for oxygen, resulting in a temporary hypoxia state of muscle, and sugar decomposes to produce a large amount of lactic acid in the absence of oxygen. These lactic acids accumulate in muscles to stimulate nerve endings, which will cause muscle pain reflexively. Meanwhile, lactic acid is a hypertonic solution. When it accumulates in muscles, it will absorb a lot of water, causing muscle swelling, which is also an important reason for muscle soreness. However, after exercise, part of the lactic acid accumulated in the muscle is oxidized, and the other part diffuses with the blood, so the muscle soreness disappears.

Delayed or chronic muscle soreness. The causes of delayed muscle soreness are complicated, including creatine injury and muscle spasm. Hoff put forward the theory of muscle injury in 1902. He believes that muscles that have not been exercised suddenly engage in high-intensity and long-term physical activities, which often lead to injuries. In fact, muscle injury has a great relationship with people's irregular exercise. H. Hopelle pointed out that not every form of muscle contraction can lead to muscle cell damage and muscle pain. Muscle pain only occurs in centrifugal contraction or isometric contraction, while in centripetal contraction, muscle pain will not occur even if you are exhausted, because muscle fibers are more likely to be injured in centrifugal contraction. This view is consistent with people's practical experience, that is, when working with the myocardium, as long as the technical movements are correct, there will be no muscle pain. Trained cyclists and swimmers will not have muscle pain even if they are exhausted. However, compared with the exercise of the general population, muscle soreness is often due to the long interval of exercise, the body function can not adapt for a while, or the form of exercise work is not standardized. This shows that the irregular working form of sports will inevitably lead to muscle soreness.

How to do muscle soreness after exercise?

rest

Rest can slow down the phenomenon of muscle soreness, slowly promote blood circulation, accelerate the elimination of metabolites, eliminate the supply and repair of nutrients in muscle soreness, and make it return to normal.

Stretching exercise

Static stretching and stretching muscles can accelerate the relaxation of muscles and relieve antagonistic muscles, and contribute to the recovery of spastic muscles. Perform static stretching exercises on sore parts, keep stretching for 2 minutes, then rest for 1 minute, and repeat. Doing this stretching exercise several times a day helps to relieve spasms.

Pat massage

Massage sore parts, relax muscles, promote muscle blood circulation, help repair injuries and relieve spasms. Of course, self-relaxation therapy can also be carried out, generally focusing on the neck, back and limbs, supplemented by the head and chest and abdomen. Specific methods are:

1. Back-pounding: Hold your hands in an empty fist and lightly beat your shoulders and waist. You can also beat your shoulders, back, waist and lower limbs alternately with a beating stick. When flapping, pay attention to the back light and the lower limbs can be biased.

2. Massage the leg: massage the front inner side and front outer side of the thigh repeatedly from top to bottom.

3. Shake your legs: When standing or sitting, the leg muscles relax and shake, and at the same time, you can perform circular activities of the ankle joint.

4. Push Tang Yin separately: Push Tang Yin point (the center of eyebrows) to the temple with both thumbs from left to right for 8 ~ 10 times, with an interval of 5 ~ 10 second each time, and then push Baihui point from the hairline of forehead for 5 ~ 6 times, with an interval of 5 ~ 10 second each time.

5. Press the chest and abdomen: press the chest from top to bottom and repeat 20 times; And massage the abdomen from left to right for 20 times, and you can get satisfactory results.

heat

Hot compress is the most effective method. Hot compress on sore local muscles can promote blood circulation, improve metabolism and accelerate the relief and recovery of muscle soreness, especially with slight stretching or massage, which will accelerate the elimination of delayed muscle soreness and promote it to return to normal.

warm up

Sufficient preparation activities before warm-up exercise, such as low-intensity aerobic exercise or low-load weight training, will relax the joints of muscle activity areas, accelerate blood circulation, and properly stretch the active muscle groups.

brick by brick

The load and time of exercise should be gradually increased, and should not exceed the scope of personal ability. Avoid centrifugal contraction. Doing unfamiliar or infrequent sports, especially engaging in repeated centrifugal muscle contraction, is more likely to cause muscle soreness, and centrifugal contraction should be avoided.

relaxing exercise

Relaxation after strenuous exercise is very important, especially stretching the active parts, which can promote circulation and help to slow down or even avoid muscle soreness. Regular exercise depends on long-term persistence and regularity, which can not only exercise, but also improve physical tolerance and reduce muscle soreness.