D.O.M.S. is Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness and, as you can probably figure out from the name of it, DOMS is the pain or discomfort that can often be felt 24 to 72 hours after exercising and subsides within 2 to 3 days. The most commonly held belief as to why this occurs is because when the demand for energy is high during activities like sprinting or jumproping lactate is produced faster than the body can get rid of it. This theory is thought to be out of date and false. A more recent theory as to why DOMS occurs is that it caused by by tiny tears in the muscle fibers caused by eccentric contraction. Eccentric contraction is what happens when a muscle elongates while under tension due to an opposing force being greater than the force generated by the muscle. So, basically, eccentric contraction is a braking force that helps keep motions smooth and helps slow movements like at the end of a punch or a throw.
Alright, that’s my bit of technical stuff for the day. I bring this up as the topic for this days post because, well, my left calf is killing me. You can see by the picture that pain is literally radiating from my calf, unless the post exercise haze is getting to me. But I’m not going to blame the jumprope, even if that is the reason why my calf has been hurting.
So the plan from now on? Get smarter about things and start stretching more, way more than I have been (which is already quite a bit). Muscles need to be stretched, they crave it, if they didn’t none of would have to worry about pulling or straining anything with all of our exercise and daily activities. Warming up before and after exercise, cooling down, warming the area, etc. should be as daily a routine for me as the jumproping has become.
It all seems pretty obvious and I should keep that in mind, it doesn’t take a whole lot of effort and it would be pretty dumb of me to exercise like I am without doing those things. How can you benefit from all of the exercise you’re doing if you can hardly stand on your own feet? Better to be safe now with a little bit of pain then sitting out for a long time doing nothing but sitting around recovering from my mistakes.
Here's a few calf stretches that seem to help me out and make the daily jumproping a bit easier:
4 comments:
Hmm, if it's hurting that much, and only in the left calf, you might've pulled something. Take it easy!
Yeah, I figured that might have been the case so I've been slowing everything down and really paying attention to it. Luckily it's been feeling better, even right after todays workout, so I must be doing something right in looking after it.
Do a few hundred less ropes for the next few days, and with the extra time do push-ups or sit-ups.
I'll definitely do that, even if I am starting to really look forward to my daily jumproping. Weird how that happens.
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