The President's Council on Fitness, Nutrition and Sports recommends physical activity combined with nutritious eating as the most effective method to improve your health and lower your risk for obesity or heart disease. However, exercising excessively often triggers muscle pain or soreness. While most muscle discomfort fades after rest or home-care, pain may signal a serious injury that requires a doctor's treatment.
Muscle Overuse
Embracing an exercise plan after years of sedentary living offers rewards to every aspect of your health, although people who attempt to gain the benefits of increased activity too quickly often suffer overuse injuries. Muscle overuse usually occur due to working out at an unsafe speed or relying on one type of activity as your sole method of exercise. Exercising with poor form is also a common reason for overuse injuries, such as throwing a baseball with improper form. Lifting weights by jerking or using momentum rather than strength overloads your muscles and elevates your chance of injury, according to the Merck Manuals Medical Library.
Pain Response
Pain that occurs after overuse is often the result of injury to your muscle or even your joints. Alert your doctor, even if you suspect an injury isn't serious, as you may have a stress fracture or tendinitis, according to MayoClinic.com. Muscle pain that occurs during your workout often signals a pulled muscle that can require a month or longer to heal. Schedule a second visit with your doctor once the pain subsides so that she can evaluate your motion, flexibility and strength before your resume your exercise regimen.
Preventive Measures
You'll have the best likelihood to prevent overuse injury by starting an exercise plan slowly so that your body has time to adjust to higher activity levels. Spread your exercise throughout the week rather than attempting to stay active longer than your endurance allows. Buy new shoes twice yearly. Your risk for muscle overuse also decreases when your exercise regimen contains different methods of activity, such as walking one day and swimming the next. People who stretch warm muscles after each workout benefit from reduced injury risk, less stiffness and more flexibility.
Normal Soreness
Starting a new exercise routine or working out longer than your typical duration often causes delayed-onset soreness, or soreness that manifests as long as 48 hours after the activity. The soreness typically does not indicate an injury and fades within a week. Muscle soreness that manifests after a weightlifting routine often signals a natural growth process, not overuse. Weightlifting builds strength by forcing muscles to overcome resistance. Effective resistance triggers an alarm reaction, or soreness, that stimulates the muscles to heal and adapt to a higher challenge level. The soreness typically subsides after 48 hours, which is why bodybuilders avoid subjecting any single muscle to resistance on consecutive days.
References
- Cleveland Clinic: Weight Training: Common Mistakes
- Merck Manuals.com; Starting an Exercise Program; September 2007
- President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports: Exercise and Weight Control
- MayoClinic.com; Weight Training: Do's And Don'ts Of Proper Technique; November 2009
- MayoCliinic.com; Muscle Pain; September 2010
- MayoClinic.com; Overuse Injury: How To Prevent Training Injuries; March 2010
