Everyone who has ever been physically active knows it – sore muscles. But what exactly is muscle soreness and how does it develop?
The aerobic (with oxygen) and anaerobic (without oxygen) metabolic pathways are available to the muscle for energy production. Carbohydrates and fats serve as fuels. In the aerobic pathway, these fuels produce water and carbon dioxide (CO2), which are exhaled through the lungs. Oxygen is needed for this. This pathway can be utilized during moderate exertion such as walking.
“Acidic” muscles?
During heavy exertion, the body needs more energy, which must be provided quickly. Oxygen transport is overwhelmed and resorts to the anaerobic metabolic pathway, the end product of which is lactate (= salt of lactic acid). The more intense the muscle work, the more lactate is formed. In stress situations, the breakdown of lactate to water and carbon dioxide proceeds more slowly than the formation of lactate in the muscle cells. The result is over-acidification of the muscle. In the past, it was erroneously assumed that this was the reason for the development of muscle soreness. The hyperacidity hypothesis had to be rejected for various reasons:
- Muscle soreness occurs only with a time delay to exercise. At this point, lactate has long been degraded.
- Muscle soreness usually occurs only during high stress of an untrained body. However, lactate is also formed in trained athletes.
Miniature injuries
The so-called muscle soreness refers to muscle pain that occurs with a time delay after unaccustomed physical activity. Sports physicians now believe that muscle soreness is a microtraumatization of muscle cells. Small tears of the muscle fibers and the associated blood vessels (microruptures) with local inflammation and swelling consequently trigger the unpleasant pain and are responsible for the limited extensibility.
Tips and info
Some sports are particularly “sore muscles“. For example, sports with extreme running and braking movements such as squash. If you hibernate during the cold season and then fight the fat pads in the summer, you will also have problems. Continuous muscle work, on the other hand, protects against the annoying pain. Furthermore, it helps to warm up sufficiently before the training and to stretch the muscles after the sport. Once the muscles are sore, a warm full bath or a visit to the sauna is beneficial. This increases blood circulation and facilitates the healing process.
