Sunday, December 7, 2014

Pain is Gain



            Lifting hardcore feels amazing.  Soreness and pain are the aiming points for gains, letting you know that you’ve worked hard.  Your biceps feel like they are stretching your skin to the point of tearing.  Your chest feels like you are going to rip your shirt.  And your legs make you feel like running three miles in a minute.  These are all the effects of a long hard workout but it usually results to soreness and pain in the morning. 
            This is normal and is a result of your muscles breaking down their fibers and releasing amino acids.  This can become one of the best things that can happen to you in weightlifting because as your muscles break down and are soon replenished with proteins, sugars, and rest, they grow to become bigger and stronger. And who doesn’t want that.  This is a huge part of why getting food, mostly proteins, is extremely significant in order to get gains.
            Now, pain really is gain, but if you continue to weightlift even after you feel the amazing feel-good pain, it’s a horrible idea to work it again the next day or even the rest of the week.  The only exception to this is if you lightly work the area for just a few minutes.  Let’s say that you decide to work biceps for your workout that day and that night and the next morning you feel soreness and tenseness.  The last thing you want to do is to re-work your biceps the next day.  The reason for this is because it could, instead of breaking fibers to regrow muscles and get stronger, it will instead break them down farther to the point of actually overworking them and losing mass.  And no one wants that.
            So the next time your old grandpa that used to lift tells you that you really haven’t done anything to your muscles if they don’t feel like they’re going to fall off, he’s not crazy.  Remember, we’re all in this together, keep your stick on the ice.   

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