Brief overview
- Description: Harmless muscle pain, especially after excessive physical activity (such as sports).
- Treatment: avoid high force exertion, if necessary warm the affected muscles and stretch them slightly
- Causes: Micro-injuries in the muscle fibers, inflammatory processes, epileptic seizures and certain medications, injections, surgery.
- Diagnosis: medical history, physical examination, possibly x-ray if injury is suspected.
- Prevention: Regular physical training, proper training build-up (slow increase of load).
What is muscle soreness?
In principle, muscle soreness is possible in all muscle parts of the musculoskeletal system if they have been preceded by a corresponding load.
Thigh and calf muscles, for example, can be sore after (unaccustomed) extended hikes, while arms, shoulders and back muscles can ache after moving house, for example, if you have carried an unaccustomed amount of weight.
The affected muscles are less mobile due to the pain and are sensitive to pressure. They are also often rather stiff and hard. Affected persons have a feeling of weakness in the corresponding muscle areas.
The word “sore” in sore muscles is probably a Germanization or verbalization of the word catarrh, which comes from the Greek and describes an inflammation.
What helps against sore muscles?
So, no special therapy is necessary to get rid of sore muscles. However, a little can be done to make it not quite so unpleasant and less likely to affect mobility:
Stay patient: The best way to get rid of sore muscles is to let it heal. That means no high levels of exertion. There are no medications for the cause of sore muscles.
Heat: Experience shows that a heat treatment is also often useful. Athletes in particular often swear by a visit to the sauna to combat sore muscles. Warm baths also usually contribute to a faster recovery of the muscle fibers. The reason is that the heat increases blood flow to the muscles.
Stretching and loosening: The pain of movement can be temporarily alleviated by passive stretching of the painful muscles or loosening exercises. This is probably because it loosens cramps or flushes out accumulated fluid (edema).
Nutrition: Consuming carbohydrates and protein after exercise helps the muscles to regenerate. As a result, muscle soreness may not be quite as severe.
Gentle massages: Only gentle massages help to stimulate blood circulation in the muscles and thus achieve good results in getting rid of sore muscles more quickly.
Strong massages, on the other hand, are not suitable for sore muscles. They often additionally irritate the injured muscle fibers and thus slow down the healing process instead of accelerating it.
What causes sore muscles?
Tiny foci of inflammation develop in the body’s effort to repair the damage. Water enters the fibers and forms small collections of fluid called edema. These cause the muscle to swell. Stretching, among other things, causes the pain and hardening typical of sore muscles.
However, during the regeneration of the injury, the body breaks down damaged structures. As they are washed out of the muscle, their degradation products eventually irritate the pain receptors located outside the muscle fibers.
Sore muscles from sports
A real sore muscle classic is walking downhill while hiking: It puts significantly more strain on the muscles than walking uphill. Slowing down and cushioning the movement means stronger physical forces acting on the muscle fibers.
Muscle soreness due to exhaustion and inflammation
A rarer form of muscle soreness is due to exhaustion. The cracks in the muscle fibrils occur when the metabolism has been challenged for a long time and intensively, for example by running a marathon. The lack of energy causes damage to the cell, and the repair processes are accompanied by inflammation. The possible result is sore muscles.
Muscle soreness due to epileptic cramps and drugs, injections and surgery.
Intramuscular injections, such as those used in many vaccinations or surgeries involving the muscles, also often result in sore muscles. This also causes micro-injuries and stretching in the muscle fibers.
Lactic acid is not to blame
What additionally speaks against the lactic acid theory: The half-life of lactate is only 20 minutes. This means that after this short period of time, half of the original amount of lactate has already been broken down. The lactic acid level has therefore long since normalized as soon as the muscle soreness sets in.
Nevertheless, lactate measurements in sports are meaningful. Lactic acid is formed whenever the muscle has to do work but does not get enough oxygen. Lactic acid respiration” is an “emergency mechanism. Training can improve the oxygen supply during exertion – lower lactate values during sporting activity are therefore a sign of better endurance.
When to see a doctor?
- the muscle soreness does not disappear by itself after ten days at the latest, or
- you do not have an explanation for the soreness by too much exercise and sport.
In these cases it is not certain that the muscle pain is really only caused by a harmless sore muscle. There are also many other and sometimes serious reasons for sore muscles. Therefore, in unclear cases, a visit to the doctor is advisable.
Diagnostics
The interview is followed by a physical examination. The doctor palpates the affected muscles. If the suspicion is confirmed that it is not muscle soreness but a muscle injury (such as a muscle tear), the doctor orders an imaging examination, such as an ultrasound scan or magnetic resonance imaging. Since a bone injury may also be behind sore muscle-like symptoms, an X-ray examination is often necessary as well.
Even if some people proudly consider a sore muscle as proof that they have exercised “properly” – no one really likes to endure the muscle pain. Fortunately, however, there are some measures to avoid a sore muscle.
- Be active regularly: Regular exercise reduces the risk of sore muscles. After all, people who move a lot improve their coordination – and the more coordinated exercises are performed, the better the muscles work together. Regular training also makes the muscles more resilient. Micro-injuries thus become less frequent.
Stretching and warm-up exercises before exercise do not help prevent muscle soreness. However, they are still important because they reduce the risk of muscle strain or more serious muscle injuries.
Magnesium and similar supplements do not usually help prevent muscle soreness. Frequent muscle cramps, on the other hand, which are related to the excitation of muscles by nerves, may be associated with magnesium deficiency.