ATLANTA—If your New Year’s resolution is still intact, you may have experienced the phenomenon known as Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness.
It happens when you take on a new form of exercise or increase your exercise regimen. A day after your workout, you feel okay. The worst of the soreness hits you a full two days later.
Why?
Joel Hardwick, an exercise physiologist at Piedmont Hospital, tells us soreness after any kind of new exercise can hit you twenty-four to forty-eight hours later.
A hard workout breaks down your muscles so your body can rebuild and make them stronger. Your muscles swell, causing soreness and pain.
But your body delays the rebuilding and healing process just a bit. Enzymes in your body have to do some housecleaning first.
You’ve got to take care of the surrounding tissue before you can rebuild,” says Hardwick. “That second day it’s really bad. It’s because they (the enzymes) are doing a little bit extra.”
It happens if you haven’t exercised in a while, but avid runners can feel it if they switch to something different like biking or skiing.
The best way to reduce the soreness or pain is to ease into any new activity.