Muscle pain can occur at the end of training and immediately after recovery, and it can also occur 12 to 48 hours after intense training or a combination of both phenomena. Pain, swelling, redness, temperature may also occur, as with all other inflammatory reactions.
Inflammation is NOT a normal phenomenon in the training process and is always an indicator of a mistake that should be avoided.
It most often occurs if an unprepared muscle is loaded more than what is for it at that moment within physiological limits. This often happens to beginners or those who haven’t trained for a long period of time, but also to top athletes in the training process when there is a sudden change in the method, dosage or quality of physical exertion.
Mainly muscle inflammations are divided into
1) acute
2) chronic
ACUTE muscle inflammation occurs immediately after training and is a consequence of the accumulation of metabolites such as lactic acid. The substance is withdrawn into the cells and there is a feeling as if the muscles are “pumped up”, the pain lasts for a short time and after a few minutes or hours it completely disappears. This kind of inflammation does not represent any problem and some even classify it as a phenomenon of fatigue.
CHRONIC or DELAYED inflammation is what is usually meant. The most noticeable characteristic is the appearance of pain 12 to 48 hours after the end of training. The pain can be extremely strong even to the touch and not only during the contraction of the inflamed muscle. The causes can be multiple.
Accumulation of lactate does not have to be the only reason that is most often thought of (athletes can reach a much higher concentration of lactate without having any signs of inflammation). Researches in the past decade have shown that with every inflammation there are microtraumas of muscle fibers with the rupture of the sarcolemma and the release of the sarcoplasm. into the extracellular space. At the site of damage, processes similar to any inflammation develop. What is most important for us is that after muscle inflammation there is no reduction in the number of muscle fibers.
Today, it is unequivocally known that eccentric contractions are the most responsible for inflammation.
METHOD “THE WEDGE IS BROKEN OUT WITH A WEDGE:”
– a very common method, do the exercise that gave you inflammation…
It’s hard to agree with that! The improvement in that case will be due to the fact that by increasing the blood flow, decay products will be eliminated sooner and material for the restoration of the damaged tissue will be delivered sooner.
It is BETTER than that to increase the blood flow with recovery methods and achieve the same because the pain during training, apart from the discomfort, will slow down the inflamed muscles with reflex protection, and therefore will not give the desired effects that are wanted to be achieved by training.