Lactic acid is a chemical structure made out of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen in a chain-like form. Lactic acid is produced as a result of hard work by the muscles. What happens is that when your body is working hard, it produces high levels of lactate in the muscles. When you’re running , your body produces so much lactate that it can’t remove it from the muscles quickly enough.
However, while this sounds like a bad thing, it’s actually a sign that your body is finding ways to create energy and ensure that you can keep doing whatever it is that you’re doing.
Why your "muscles" ache after a work out
When the lactate levels get too high, a chemical reaction occurs with other chemicals in the body, creating lactic acid. What you should know is that it is not the rise in lactate levels that leads to that burning feeling in your muscles, but rather it seems that it is the reaction that forms lactic acid that is the cause of the pain. But some scientists are still debating about the pain’s source.
Several theories have been proposed, to explain the delayed muscle soreness. One theory is intensive exercise and lactic acid accumulation. Some evidence disputes the role of lactic acid, in muscle soreness. For example, lactic acid is removed from muscle, within 30 minutes after exercise, but soreness does not appear for at least 24 hours. Also, some exercises, such as those that stretch the hamstring muscle, cause little, or no lactic acid build-up, but result in soreness.
Another theory, is a tissue damage theory. Considerable evidence supports the idea, that exercise damages muscle fibres and /or surrounding connective tissue (micro-tears). The muscle tissue becomes swollen, which stimulates sensitive nerve endings and results in soreness.
Better Muscular Recovery
Contrary to popular belief, muscle tissue is actually broken down-not built up-during anaerobic exercise. When a muscle is subjected to intense stress, tiny micro tears develop in its fibers. This contributes to the presence of delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS) that often accompanies a grueling workout. By expediting nutrient delivery to your musculoskeletal system, selective stretching helps to repair muscle tissue and accelerate the healing process.
How to overcome lactic acid
But what you really want to know is how you can avoid that burning pain when you are working out. And the answer is simple: work out more. While it might seem counterproductive to workout more, what you need to do is effectively ‘teach’ your muscles to handle lactic acid in a more effective way. However, you want to do this is a controlled fashion so that you’re not hurting each time you walk in the door.Once lactic acid builds up, you simply cannot continue to train. Selective muscular stretching helps to neutralize the effects of lactic acid by restoring blood flow to your working muscles.
You can start to build up a resistance to lactic acid by working out at a medium intensity during your workouts. This means that you are working just hard enough to get your heart pumping fast and your lungs working a little harder.
You might measure this by how much you can talk as you are working out – which should be in incomplete sentences, though you can still talk. As you build up your muscular and aerobic capacity, your body will be able to handle higher levels of lactic acid and thus reduce the amount of pain that you might feel.
References and further info:
http://www.24hrfitness.co.uk/fitness%20tips/lactic-acid.html
http://www.thestretchinghandbook.com/archives/stretching-gym.php
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