Sore, no more

When it comes to muscle development, always stimulate, not annihilate, writes Simrun Chopra

Pushing yourself out of your comfort zone or trying something new is a good thing. It helps you get stronger and challenges your body in ways it’s not used to. This does not mean that the often-accompanying muscle soreness is a good thing. Muscle soreness is good to the extent that it tells you that unused muscles are now being utilised. It is a good thing every now and then when the aim is to push yourself past your comfort zone or to stimulate new progress.

Many times though, people get caught up in trying to make themselves sore every session under the false assumption that more is always good. Continuously being sore after every workout shows that your body hasn’t recovered fully and this can be detrimental to your progress. It is a sign that you are overtraining and not getting adequate nutrition to support this level of training intensity. It is also a sign that you are not getting enough rest, and time to recover.

Muscle soreness is a side effect of the stress that you put on your muscles when you exercise. The pain you feel is completely normal and is due to inflammation within the muscle. Always being sore and not letting your body recover can lead to injuries. When it comes to muscle development, always remember — stimulate, not annihilate. You are only as good as your recovery! The good news is that normal soreness is a sign that you are getting stronger. During exercise, when you apply pressure on a particular muscle, fibres in that muscle begin to break down. As they repair themselves, they become larger and stronger than they were before. Now, your muscles are better prepared for rigorous activity, be it exercise or otherwise. Just because you are not sore or crippled with pain after a solid workout, does not mean that the exercise session was inadequate, or for that matter, ineffective. The best way to fight soreness is to exercise regularly. The more you do, the better your body gets at adapting to your workouts, learning continuously to effectively distribute the workload across the muscle fibres in use. However, all of us are affected by pain and soreness in different ways. We have to feel and then judge what is too much and then take further action accordingly. If you’re very sore especially as a beginner or someone who has had a lot of time off between workouts, the best way to relieve muscle soreness is gentle exercise. Some walking or some light stretching through the day helps. Ensure that you warm up properly by stretching before and after a workout and hydrate properly. The more you move, the faster the soreness will disappear. A temporary solution is a heating pad or a warm water bath, but a long-term solution is to ice the sore areas because it helps reduce swelling and inflammation. Your focus should always be on focusing on proper exercise, backed by good nutrition and mindful eating habits. Whether for weight loss, to get or stay fit, or possibly even for reasons to do with vanity and wanting to look good, all of this cannot be taken lightly. If done the right way, muscle soreness will never be something that becomes a chronic worry.

(The author is a health coach.)