Yes, pain hurts, but it can also be a sign that your body is becoming stronger. Reveal which pains to crave and which to crush for optimal fitness.
Hammer your body to stay strong
Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness strikes 24 to 72 hours after a punishing exercise session, like a delayed muscular hangover.
Crave it DOMS is due to muscle damage and your body's inflammatory response. It's a sign your muscles are adapting to new activity, giving you increased strength.
Push through (gently) Although your muscles need time to rebuild, DOMS isn't an excuse to skive. Gentle exercise in the affected muscles offers short-term pain relief. If you're suffering after a 10K, you'll feel better after a gentle jog. A massage two hours after your workout also helps. Apply pressure into the core of the affected muscle in a circular action. This ensures an even blood flow for a faster recovery. So you can punish yourself all over again.
Unpick your stitch and run further
The dreaded stitch is an intense stab under your lower rib cage, as if someone slipped a carving knife into your side.
Crush it, the stitch occurs when your peritoneal ligaments, which hang from the diaphragm, become stressed as your torso twists during exercise. It disrupts your session and slows your running. In other words, sew it up.
Love your ligaments: avoid chest-only breathing and instead take deep 'belly breaths". This lets your diaphragm lower and ligaments relax, preventing the spasms that cause the damage. After two minutes, alternate your breathing. Exhale only when the leg on the opposite side to the stitch hits the ground. This reduces stress on the ligaments and relieves pain.
Endure the flames for fitness
Immediate muscle burn feels like being injected with sulphuric acid.
Crave it, when you feel that burn, you're working just below or at your lactate threshold. Hit it often and you'll push your threshold, making you faster and increasing your rate of fat-burning.
Light a fire To work out your lactate threshold, run for 30 mins at a pace that leaves you exhausted. Wear a HR monitor and take an average reading for the last 20 mins of your run. That should be your target in cardio exercise from now on. Sprint up a gentle hill at 90% of all-out effort for one minute. The interval is your jog back down. Repeat six times and feel lactic acid seep in.
If your fitness plateaus, or you're training for an endurance event, work at 120-140% of lactate threshold three days a week, for five weeks. Athletes who did this improved their ability to buffer the chemicals that cause your muscles to produce lactic acid by 25%.
Explore your limits... occasionally
Exercise-induced nausea is a feeling akin to boozing.
Crush it, this occurs when you have low blood sugar from dehydration, over-hydration or over-exertion.
Your move: push yourself to this level rarely. For instance, when training for a triathlon, you need to be properly hydrated and well-fuelled. I recommend a high-carb snack such as a muesli bar an hour before you start. Then, if you're feeling lousy, it's only because you've pushed yourself. And funnily enough, that's got to feel good.
Get the shakes and get stronger
Your muscles shake under pressure.
Crave it, the achy-breaky shake occurs when nerve cells that control your muscles drop out of service due to fatigue.
Rest, then repeat It's a sign you've put your body through something it's not accustomed to. But take heart: the more regular your exercise, the more your neurons and muscle fibres will adapt, leading to less twitching. Increase your rest between sets to 3 mins and repeat your workout an extra day per week. This will train your body to cope with the workouts, so your muscles repair and expand sooner. But don't go over-board. Push too hard and you could damage the muscle it's best to stop and stretch before continuing, or drop to a lighter weight. After all, you'll get nowhere with a broken elbow.
