Leg muscle soreness can participate in long-distance running how to quickly recover from muscle soreness

Often it is not the idea of laziness that prevents us from exercising, but rather the delayed soreness of exercise that is at work.

Can you participate in long-distance running with sore leg muscles?

After the pain in the legs, you can choose to exercise properly, not fast running. Running has a term called "lactic acid valve", it refers to when the human body running speed exceeds a certain threshold, the human blood will be a large number of lactic acid production, it will make you have to stop. Although it is not the "culprit" that causes our legs to get sore, we should try to avoid it at the beginning. If the leg is really painful to step, we can choose to rest a day, soak a hot foot, massage the sore legs, from top to bottom from the inside out gently pat the legs or hot compress, the next day the symptoms will be significantly reduced.

What to do with muscle soreness

1. Hot compress

Hot compress is to make the blood vessels dilate through heat, accelerate the local blood microcirculation, which in turn relaxes the muscles and promotes the dissolution of accumulated lactic acid, so as to relieve muscle soreness. Note that the hot compress is used after the soreness of the legs after running. Specific practice: you can use hot towels, warm bags (the temperature should not be too high, 60 degrees is appropriate) directly on the leg muscle soreness, once 15-20 minutes is appropriate, 4-6 hours once, until the muscle soreness is eliminated.

2. Massage

After the first day of running, you can massage the legs, which can promote blood circulation, relieve muscle tightness and promote acid discharge, thus relieving the soreness. Specific practice: massage the sore muscles themselves, along the direction of the muscle massage push can be.

3. oral vitamin C and E

There is a role in promoting collagen synthesis in connective tissue, which helps accelerate the repair of damaged tissue and relieve soreness. Vitamin C is not only the main component of the lubricating fluid that connects tissues, but also protects cells from destruction and prevents aging. Main sources: nuts, seeds, dark green vegetables, canola oil, whole grains, etc.

How to prevent muscle soreness

The easiest way to reduce or avoid the onset of delayed muscle soreness is to gradually increase the intensity when performing a new training style, allowing the natural adaptation mechanisms of the muscles to be used. Although the main cause of delayed muscle soreness is centrifugal contraction, intentionally reducing the magnitude of centrifugal contraction seems to be impractical in most training modalities. Surprisingly, it turns out that static stretching or warming up before exercise does not actually prevent delayed muscle soreness, but of course its role in reducing injury still cannot be ignored.

Why does soreness occur

1. Lack of exercise in general

People who do not exercise at all during the day, suddenly participate in running sports, will make the calf muscles can not adapt to a moment, resulting in soreness of the calf.

2. No warm-up

No warm-up exercise before running will lead to the calf muscles, joints, ligaments and other parts of the calf are not active to enter the intensity of running exercise, which will easily lead to calf muscle strain in running, resulting in the phenomenon of calf pain.

3. Exercise intensity is too large

The intensity of running is too high, which may lead to insufficient blood supply to the legs during exercise, and in the case of ischemia makes metabolic products can not be removed, and accumulate in the muscles, and then stimulate the pain receptors, thus triggering acute muscle pain in the calves during running. Generally this situation after the end of running, rest for a while to recover; and running intensity is too large, the amount of exercise more than the body load, is also easy to cause the calf and other parts of the muscle strains, is also caused by calf pain.

Types of muscle soreness

The root cause of soreness in the legs and feet after running is: muscle soreness caused by overload exercise. Generally speaking, muscle soreness can be divided into two types: acute muscle soreness and chronic muscle soreness.

1. Acute muscle soreness.

It is caused by a transient ischemic condition in the muscles during high-intensity exercise, which prevents the removal of metabolites and causes a buildup in the muscles. This soreness will disappear immediately after the exercise stops.

2. Chronic muscle soreness.

It is a delayed muscle soreness, mostly caused by muscle fiber damage due to muscle contraction during centrifugal exercise. It tends to appear between 12-24 hours after exercise and will peak between 24-72 hours, with a certain recovery period of about 5-7 days.