If It's Good, Why Is Exercising Painful?

[Mondsee]

Having sore muscles today after an intense run I did yesterday I was wandering... if it is good for our bodies to exercise, why is it that we feel some pain (often called "good pain") after a workout?

It's like... to survive we need to eat. We eat and while doing that as well as after that we feel very pleased and literally satisfied.

That is not the case for exercising. Even tough it is something "healthy", it can produce discomfort.

[egoeimai]

Actually its painful If you believe it is. It may sound weird, but its all about perspective.

[Mondsee]

@egoeimai Well, yes, but objectively seen, it does hinder you from doing certain things flawless because of the pain... like going up or down the stairs very quickly. It's like a minor injury...

[Michael569]

if it's not painful and uncomfortable, you are doing it wrong. 

Your muscles have to be put under stress to react and grow, same for your bones( not to grow but to avoid osteoporosis). If you see people smiling and chatting in gyms, that's a money and time wasted. Red face, sweat, grunt and contracted face is what counts. 

The chemistry behind the pain is that glucose ( final product of carbohydrate digestion)  in your body is being converted to energy in your muscle cells. Glucose gets into the cell with help of insulin, gets converted to ATP ( more compatible molecules for cellular mitochondria) with help of oxygen. This is the standard process when to activity is not vigorous, like walking, easy running. Basically body has enough time to convert the energy so it uses oxygen, the need for energy is stable and not large.  

However if you engage in a harder exercise and body cannot get enough oxygen, lactic acid is being formed to get the glucose pushed into your muscle cells, to produce ATP+waste products( co2 that you breathe out) . This is much faster but not long sustainable. The accumulation of lactic acid and debt of oxygen is what causes the muscle pain. The pain you feel afterwards however is your muscles recovering from micro tears that are formed whenever you work out. This is a normal process and in order to grow, muscle has to damage itself to repair and add additional mass. 

 

It is important to distinguish between "good" muscle pain and "bad" joint pain. If you feel pain in your knees, elbows, back, usually it means you are doing something wrong or over training and should take it easy, see a masseur or just optimise your nutrition. Listen to your body and learn to obey its signals. With experience you'll learn to distinguish the good and bad pain. 

 

Hope that helps

 

[Phocus]

@Mondsee

You're making a little bit of an assumption by saying that "exercise is painful" so lets get a bit more specific: changing the fitness level that you're currently accustomed to, is painful.

Homeostasis.  All of our bodies natural systems tend to prefer to stay right where they are, even if "where you are" is a very unhealthy place.

In the context of a harsh cruel world where survival is not guaranteed; food, water, shelter, are not guaranteed; this was a valuable trait that helped us keep from getting too curious and winding up as something's lunch.  In the context of a world where all of our essential needs are provided for us (and even if you can't provide for yourself, someone else usually will if you just ask) this seems more like a crippling mental illness.

[Mondsee]

@Michael569 Thank you for your biology class refresher!  It was good hearing about the chemical process inside our bodies again!

23 hours ago, Phocus said:

Homeostasis.  All of our bodies natural systems tend to prefer to stay right where they are, even if "where you are" is a very unhealthy place.

This is what I was looking for. A little before you posted it I came up to the same idea, I realized it is not that vigorous physical movement is painful, but that our bodies are not used to that level of intensity.

Thanks guys!

[Nahm]

@Mondsee Do breathe-through stretches while believing the stretches will free you of the 'pain', and it actually will.