Sore muscles means time to work out again!

You felt enthusiastic, you went out and gave it your best, you ran down every ball, you played 5 sets even though you haven't played even one consecutive set in a year. Next morning, you can't get out of bed.

There are two ways to look at sore muscles. You can be proud of your workout gone well and do it again even more intensely tomorrow, or you can curse the pain and swear to never again exercise as much at once. Sometimes muscles hurt that you didn't know you had, which is probably true in that they are muscles you didn't use. What muscle soreness really means is that your muscles are getting stronger. Of course pain should be moderate, otherwise you just may have injured yourself! "Mild soreness just a natural outcome of any kind of physical activity," says Rick Sharp, professor of exercise physiology at Iowa State University in Ames. "And they're most prevalent in beginning stages of a program."

Usually you feel the onset of pain in a day or two after your activity. Exercise physiologists call this delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). DOMS is a common result of exercise that stresses the muscle tissue beyond what it is used to, like contracting while lengthening (bicep curls) or performing in an eccentric way (running downhill). The muscle tears microscopically and the inflammation that accompanies it, is what hurts.

There is no antidote to muscle soreness, everyone hurts when they subject themselves to exercises they haven't regularly done. Just imagine how body builders must feel, not even speaking of someone who has never exercised before! This is a stage the muscles have to go through in order to adapt and be ready for a repeat of that type of exercise.

What can you do if you are in so much pain you can't even raise an arm to brush your teeth? Ice is one. Rest is another. Advil will take the inflammation away. Massage will relax you're bunched up muscles. Heat in the form of those Thermacare bandages at CVS feels nice and so does stretching. The most effective thing to prevent soreness is to do more exercise after your given routine. Stretch out to cool down, jog it off or go for a swim. This will ease the pain. Of course you also don't want all that hard work to go to waste, so perhaps work out a different muscle group for a week or so and then return to the sore group. This will keep your muscles strengthening and build on your results.

Most importantly don't be discouraged through this pain. Treat yourself to a massage and get back out there. Be proud!

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