As the weather warms up, some of you may be encouraged and motivated to come out and train more frequently! It certainly is a great way to start your day and sets the tone for the rest of the week, or just a good way for you to unwind after a long day and let out some energy.

 

For those that are relatively new to it all, it may be an exciting time and even more reason to get up and go.

 

But then you might be worried about the pain and soreness your body goes through with all these extra sessions.

Don’t be discouraged! This is all part of the process and you are just experiencing DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness).

 

This happens to everyone in some way, shape, or form, and it is a normal part of the health and fitness lifestyle. What happens is that when training, the muscle fibres get damaged (which is normal) so as part of the repairing and rebuilding process, you may experience some soreness. The degree of soreness can depend on a wide range of factors, such as the types of exercises, how you perform them, how long you do them, how much is performed within a session, how long the session is, how accustomed your body is to training, whether the exercise is new to you, etc.

So whether you have been training for 10 days or 10 years, you will experience soreness to some degree based on the above factors.

 

Don’t let the soreness and pain discourage you from coming in and training. Movement actually helps the recovery process, since we want to promote blood flow to those muscles that are sore to assist with the body’s natural healing mechanisms. This is part of the reason why massages, stretching, or even light walking helps with alleviating pain in sore muscles.

 

If the pain improves with movement, then come in and continue to train. Take it a bit easier if you need to. Generally once you’re warmed up you’ll be able to still keep up a relatively high intensity, but if you’re new and your body is a bit tender, then don’t be afraid to take it easier. Remember that there are always exercises and techniques we can use to allow you to keep moving and training, and it’s much better than not doing anything at all!

 

Although the soreness is a part of the lifestyle, it does get better over time. You learn to deal with it better and your body doesn’t get as sore as often. 

 

While on the topic of soreness, it is important to note that soreness is not an indication of progress. This means that you shouldn’t be training with the purpose to make you sore, nor should you think that the more sore you are, the more effective a particular training session was. As mentioned earlier, soreness comes down to a variety of factors. How you should be measuring your progress is the results that you are getting over time, and how those results relate to your goals. 

 

Focus on the positives of training and don’t let the soreness deter you from doing what you set out to do!

 

If you find that you are still struggling, book yourself in for a Personal Training session for a tailor-made program to suit your individual situation!