Avoid Muscle Fatigue
Muscle aches, or myalgia, are extremely common. Almost everybody has experienced discomfort in their muscles at some point.
Because there is muscle tissue in nearly all parts of the body, this type of pain can be felt practically anywhere...
What are the most common causes of muscle aches?
Often, people who experience muscle aches can easily pinpoint the cause. This is because most instances of myalgia result from too much stress, tension, or physical activity. Some common causes include:
- muscle tension in one or more areas of the body
- overusing the muscle during physical activity
- injuring the muscle while engaging in physically demanding work or exercise
Often, when you overdo exercising, instead of leaving you invigorated, the opposite takes place and you land up experiencing 'workout fatigue ' or 'gym fatigue'. This especially happens with those in a race to shed the flab in a short time.
Not enough rest time: It's vital to take breaks between your sessions. Don't go directly from climbing a motorised wall to the trampoline.
Being too 'connected':
Answering all those office mails and calls won't let you switch off and focus on your workout, leaving you stressed and tired. Take a digital break.
Lack of nutrients: Food is fuel, so muscles must also get adequate nutrients before a workout to allow them to contract and work well. Apart from getting enough protein, carbs and essential vitamins, try sipping on a healthy smoothie with say, wheatgrass, known to be a potent energiser.
It is recommended to drink 10-12 8-oz glasses of water daily. While exercising,
Use correct form when exercising. Pay attention to muscle imbalances and incorrect movement patterns; follow a regular stretching program. The right strength and flexibility will help you achieve correct form during exercising.
Defining Fatigue
First of all, what does “fatigue” mean? In sport science, fatigue is the term used to describe the inhibition of maximal performance that comes about as a result of stressors imposed on the athlete.
Fatigue can come about from both training and other factors (relationship stress, schoolwork, lack of sleep, poor nutrition), but in this discussion we’ll just stick to training-induced fatigue. Fatigue, at a basic level, means you can’t put the shot as far, can’t squat as much, and can’t move as smoothly on the balance beam as usual, and for added bonus points, it makes you feel like crap, too!
raining-induced fatigue has 3 primary proximate causes: substrate depletion,
neuron doctrine alterations,
and micro trauma.
They each play a role in adding to fatigue, and must of course each be addressed if fatigue reduction is a goal.
When you train hard and heavy, you use up fuel (substrate) to do so. If you perform a heavy squat, your levels of ATP right after the squat are lower than they were before you began, which is the primary reason that the next rep will be harder.
Resting for several seconds usually replenishes acute ATP stores. If your set lasts for multiple reps, your creatine phosphate (CP) levels will drop, and that will cause acute fatigue as well, this time taking several minutes to recover from, as levels of CP return to normal.
Lastly, if you train for multiple sets and reps, glycogen is used to generate energy to recover your ATP and CP stores. Now, glycogen doesn’t replete in just minutes, and a voluminous workout can require up to several days of eating carbs to fully replete the glycogen used up.
The interesting point is that if you train hard enough (with enough volume, intensity, and frequency) to get good adaptations, you are unlikely to replete 100% of all your glycogen each week, particularly if you’re on a lower carb or hypocaloric diet. Oftentimes, this means that week after week of hard training leads to lower and lower glycogen levels, which have been repeatedly shown to be linked with decreases in performance AND muscle growth. Kind of a bad deal!
Neuron doctrine alterations describe the change in the nervous and hormonal systems of the body with hard training over time. Over weeks of hard training, testosterone production tends to drop, while cortical production rises. Sympathetic activity begins to predominate (fight or flight), while parasympathetic activity begins to wane (recovery and regeneration).
The nervous system begins to display poorer synchronicity in operation, and even intracellular signaling pathways (neither neural nor hormonal but very important) begin to operate in such as way that promotes catabolism and discourages anabolism.
Muscle fatigue is a normal side effect of exercise
Listen to your body – fatigue is a sign that recovery has not taken place yet. If that is the case, then perform active recovery, which means participating in low impact, low intensity exercise such as walking, light swimming, or yoga. Do not return to higher intensity exercise until you feel fully recovered and recharged.
You should see your doctor for:
- pain that does not go away after a few days of home treatment
- severe muscle pain that arises without a clear cause
- muscle pain that occurs along with a rash
- muscle pain that occurs after a tick bite
- myalgia accompanied by redness or swelling
- pain that occurs soon after a change in the medications you take
- pain that occurs with an elevated temperature
The following can be a sign of a medical emergency. Get to the hospital as soon as possible if you experience any of the following along with aching muscles:
- a sudden onset of water retention or a reduction in urine volume
- difficulty swallowing
- vomiting or running a fever
- trouble catching your breath
- stiffness in your neck area
- muscles that are weak
inability to move the affected area of the body
Your thoughts ……..?
Medical / Dental Disclaimer
The information on this POST is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional Medical/Dental advice, diagnosis or treatment. All content, including text, graphics, images and information, contained on or available through this article is for general information purposes / educational purposes only, and to ensue discussion or debate.