For some time now I have been feeling that I can no longer wait to exercise my body. Since Monday, at the beginning of the week, I finally decided to go to a gym. I don't procrastinate anymore. Last Monday was my first day of training with an instructor who tells me what routine to do and what part of my body to exercise. In my case my whole body needs exercise. I am almost rusty.
Today is my third day and I already feel sore all over my body, to be more precise, the pain has been there since the first day of exercise when I got home, I couldn't move my legs. In fact, I couldn't sleep well last night. I found it hard to fall asleep, despite taking a muscle relaxant. According to the gym instructor, the muscle pain I felt was normal, the strange thing would be if I didn't feel any pain, because it would indicate that the exercises were not giving the expected results.
According to the gym instructor, the pain I am experiencing is a "delayed onset muscle soreness", which is the multiple microscopic tears in the muscle fibers. It happens when the exercised muscles undergo significant physical strain when performing exercise routines and these small tears are a natural response to exertion. The muscle soreness occurs within hours of starting the workout and can last up to a week, not during the workout, but after the workout is completed.
I am clear about the pain I experience after the workout because if it is pain while exercising, it means that I am not doing something right. The exercise I do is moderate in order to prepare my body in a correct way and normally it should not be painful, that is to say, it should not cause pain during the execution of the exercise routines.
From what the instructor tells me, one way to reduce the effects of muscle soreness in the first week is to do a warm-up routine for the muscles before starting the exercises for the legs, arms, and then the whole body. Muscles become more flexible when you warm up for about 10 minutes.
When I get home from the gym I feel the muscle aches the most, I have a stiff feeling and I don't even want to move. I wait about half an hour before I go into the shower. And before going to sleep I take a muscle relaxant. I just hope that this week will pass quickly so that I can feel free of this uncomfortable ailment.
However, I feel upbeat, optimistic about the exercise routines, the atmosphere in the gym is cheerful and the company of the other people doing the exercises makes the hour and a half of training in the afternoons go by very quickly. The exercises are done in an open space and all the people are distanced from each other so that they can move around as they maintain the sanitary measures required by the pandemic situation we are all going through.
I hope that my muscles will get used to the exercise after a few days and that the muscle pain will go away. Apart from taking painkillers at night before going to sleep, I am drinking ginger tea. Ginger is a natural anti-inflammatory, it helps to relieve muscle contraction and minimize muscle aches.
It also helps, illogically enough, to keep training every day to reduce muscle soreness and speed healing. The gym instructor recommends if the soreness is too intense to take a day or two off and let those micro-tears heal, I'll particularly allow Saturday and Sunday to rest as my workout routine at the gym is Monday to Friday. I'm sure I'll survive until the weekend to rest lying in my bed. The weekend is coming soon!
I am grateful to God, for being alive and allowing me to enjoy life in a healthy and joyful way, for giving me energy and vitality every day of my life, despite the pain situations we go through. I don't mean muscular pain but the pain and tribulations of the environment we live in.
I am grateful to be on this wonderful platform. Read.cash allows me to have additional income through the generous tips from the always awaited bot and from all the people who follow my articles, from the sponsors who with their sponsorship bring their great blessing, never in the current economic situation in my country would I have been able to be in a gym, where the monthly cancellation could not be paid with my current salary. Thanks to read.cash and all those who support me I am where I am, exercising my body for a healthy life.
Happy and grateful to God, to life, to read.cash, and to all of you. God bless you all.
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Ah yes, muscle soreness. I remember the feeling. But it is true once you've healed from it, you can keep exercising without going through it again. Sometimes, it also helps to lift your legs up for maybe 10 minutes, resting them against a wall.