Personal Trainer Secrets Issue May 21 2007

Fitness Article of the Week
The Importance of Warming Up and Cooling Down

It is essential to warm up the body prior to a workout, and cool down following heavy exercise. Just like any machine, the body needs to get ready for use. Before you race a car, you rev the engine so it is warmed up enough to be able to perform at its best. Similarly, our bodies need warming up before any major physical exertion, be it physical work around the house/office, athletic events, or a heavy workout.

What Is Warming Up

Muscles in their normal state, are a little stiff; generally, the more sedentary the lifestyle, the stiffer they become. In this condition, if the body is pushed into sudden heavy-duty exercise or exertion, the muscles can tear, resulting in very painful injuries. To prevent unnecessary damage, the muscles must be warmed up before any major exercise. Warm-up sessions need not be too prolonged – about 10 to 20 minutes is fine.

Benefits of Warming Up

Numerous benefits can be attained from just 15 minutes of warm-up exercises. Some of the most mentionable are:

• Reduced muscle stiffness

• Improved flexibility, resulting in better contraction and relaxation movements

• Better oxygen absorption by the muscles

• Higher muscle temperature, promoting better blood circulation

• Increased heart rate, which supports heavier exercise

• Increased metabolism, facilitating the energy production necessary for the real exercise that follows the warm-up

• Better movement during exercise

Recommended Warm-Ups

• Brisk walking, jogging, using a stair stepper, or jogging in place, for a duration of 5 to 10 minutes

• Dynamic limb and body stretching exercises for a duration of 5 to 10 minutes

• Special focus exercises that concentrate on the particular area of the body which will be most heavily worked in the routine to follow

Why a Regulated Cool Down?

Cooling down means gradually bringing the body from a super active state back to its relaxed state. Tapering down the muscle movement before completely stopping the heavy workout helps the body better cope with the metabolic changes that occur following the workout.

Just as the warm-up exercises help the body plunge into heavy exercises, cool-down exercises help it return to its normal state. Some important benefits from cool-down exercises include:

• Reduces adrenaline, the body’s “action” hormone

• Prevents sudden fainting that can occur when blood accumulates in the extremities as sudden exertion is stopped

• Facilitates removal of waste products from the muscles, preventing muscle spasms and cramps

• Tapers the heartbeat to the standard rate in a systematic manner, preventing hyperventilation

• Slows down the muscles and reduces the temperature in your body and muscle tissue.

Recommended Cool Down Exercises

• Brisk walking, jogging, or running in place for 5 to 20 minutes

• Static stretching exercises for a 5 to 10-minute duration

It is very important for the body to have a gradual ramping up before the actual heavy workout begins and gradual stopping after the workout is over. Ignoring the warming up and cooling down process will cause the body and muscles to suffer a lot of unnecessary damage, both in the short run and long run.

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We’ve all experienced it – you do strenuous work or exercise and wake up the next morning with muscle soreness. Even when you didn’t hurt the night before, you may be experiencing something known as DOMS, or delayed onset muscle soreness. Whatever the activity or project was, you did too much, too quickly. Now, you’re dealing with sore muscles.

What Causes Those Sore Muscles?

Theories about the cause of muscle soreness have changed through the years. Not long ago, lactic acid would have been fingered as the culprit for those aching muscles. However, that theory has been all but dismissed today.

During high levels of physical activity, lactic acid is produced because the muscles’ demand for oxygen is greater than the blood can deliver. In order to produce the energy the muscles need to function, the body begins a process that works without that oxygen. The byproduct of this effort is lactic acid. As it builds up and gets locked inside your muscles, the acid can cause a burning sensation within the muscle tissue.

For many years, lactic acid buildup was thought to be the cause of sore muscles. However, this theory has been disproved, since we now know that lactic acid does not remain in the muscles for any length of time. Rather, it is completely washed out between 30 and 60 minutes after the physical exertion. Most muscle soreness, on the other hand, becomes noticeable between 24 and 36 hours after the exercise. After the lactic acid cause was debunked, the cause of muscle soreness was again a mystery.

Today’s most popular theory about the cause of sore muscles lays the blame on micro-trauma to the muscle fibers. When you overexert yourself physically, whether during work or play, you cause some localized irritation of the muscle fiber membranes, which can cause soreness.

This micro-trauma causes calcium molecule leakage from these muscle fibers, as well as an accumulation of histamines, potassium, prostaglandins, and local edema (fluid retention). The painful sensation occurs when fluid retention in the muscle area places pressure on the muscles’ nerve endings. The soreness generally is not caused by damage to the muscle itself, unless your muscles are not sore, but in extreme pain.

Other Possible Factors

• Overwork of the muscles releases chemical irritants, which can irritate pain receptors.

• An increase in blood flow to the area because of the intense muscle activity causes swelling and irritates pain receptors.

Whenever you overdo it physically, it’s possible you’ll wake up experiencing some residual pain. However, by moving your sore muscles, you can gradually return them to their normal state. You should take care about performing heavy exercise again, though, since the damaged muscles have temporarily lost some of their strength. Give them some time to recover and heal before attempting to exercise or work at the level which originally caused the injury and soreness. There is no “cure” for achy muscles that have been over-stimulated by exercise or overuse, other than time.

Feel the Burn

The muscle soreness you are feeling could be an indication of muscle growth. Light training in the same exercise as well as stretching sore muscles can help decrease the soreness. It is also OK to train and/or use your sore muscles before they are 100 percent recovered, as long as you do so with caution and care. Reckless overwork of sore muscles can cause serious damage, which will hinder your overall goal of gaining strength. However, improvement in muscle performance (i.e., increased strength, control, and endurance) is directly related to the pattern of muscle stress and recovery.

Should you stop before you “feel the burn?” Research indicates that you should work through the burn, unless you are no longer looking to improve, but simply want to maintain your current level of fitness. It’s only about eight hours after you’ve worked your muscles hard that your body goes to work, releasing the cytokines that cause inflammation and soreness; increased blood flow and redness; and increased fluid flow in the damaged area, causing swelling. The cells around the aggravated areas release factors that encourage tissue growth and heal the damaged muscle fibers. Muscle fibers become larger with each repetition of this process, and sometimes grow in number by splitting to create new fibers.

Eventually your muscles will no longer become sore from the same old routines. While you may be thinking this is a great thing, this is only partially correct. The reason soreness no longer affects you is that your muscles have grown to the point where they are no longer overworked from your regular workout routine. If you are happy with your current level of fitness and muscle mass, continue your routine as is, and revel in the lack of pain. Remember, though, this will only be routine maintenance. Muscles grow by building upon the breakdown caused by your workouts, so you will never become stronger by repeating a routine that no longer causes you to become sore.

Ways to Avoid Sore Muscles

Now that you understand why it can be a good thing to be sore, here are a few things you can do to reduce the pain.

• When you exercise, gradually increase the intensity of your workout. This will allow the strength and endurance of your muscles to grow gradually and avoid the intense pain of overexertion from a single workout.

• Avoid making sudden, major changes to your routine. Introduce new things slowly, and work up to your max.

• Make sure you stretch and warm up properly before any physical activity. Cool down and stretch again at the end of the activity. This will help you avoid sore muscles in the day(s) following the activity.

• Make sure you are using proper form when exercising, as incorrect posture and positioning can cause sore muscles.

It is best to think of sore muscles as an injury. You cannot push them too hard, or you will cause more damage or possibly serious injury. Avoid further vigorous activity to the point that it causes pain. Do some low-impact aerobics to help increase blood flow. Gently massage and stretch the affected muscles. If your pain is bad, try taking an anti-inflammatory painkiller like ibuprofen. And the best thing you can do for sore muscles? Give them time to heal.

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