 In order for your body to create stronger muscles, your body has to break them down and rebuild those muscles which will cause some muscle soreness or discomfort. This will usually last from one day to three days after your workout and of course, everyone's pain tolerance is different and has a different threshold, but exceeding that threshold can result in pain.
There are signs that you can look for to tell if it is healthy muscle soreness or if it is a possible injury. Good signs: 😊Goes away in 1 to 3 days 😊Improves with stretching 😊Sitting still increases soreness or stiffness Bad signs: 😠Sharp pain within the joints or muscles, during or after exercise 😠Movement makes the pain worse 😠Last longer than seven days 😠Pain does not go away after rest Check out this article by Move Forward that will explain in more details and make sure you check out their chart to help you out in the future. https://www.moveforwardpt.com/…/soreness-vs-pain-whats-diff… Knowing the difference between muscle soreness and pain will help you prevent injury. Train Hard, Train Smart, and Have Fun Deanna I think I am going to keep it short and sweet this morning! There are so many components to our running form, I spoke about one, the arm swing a couple of weeks ago and this week I just want to briefly break down two that you should be considering. Don’t pound or stomp the feet. - You want to think light and quite, if your stride sounds like a herd of buffalo then you are hitting the ground too hard. We already are putting a major impact on our bones, joints, and muscle from running you are not helping it out any by striking those feet so hard. Lighten it up, guys. Keep those shoulders down and back. - When you tense up those shoulders, you are not only tightening up those muscles unnecessarily but you are also affecting your posture, which will affect your running form. These are two of my top pet peeves, besides the arm swing, when it comes to our running forms. Check out this article by Runners World that will give you some more tips. https://www.runnersworld.com/training/a20864133/4-ways-to-master-your-running-form/ Train Hard, Train Smart, and Have Fun, Deanna  I love learning new things and I also like sharing them with you, so I am sharing some new information on collagen that I recently learned. As you may know, collagen helps with hair and nails since this is mainly what we see advertised. Studies have shown that collagen can also help with muscle and tissue repair and joint pain, which will help with your recovery after a run or hard workout. Here are my two findings that I want to share with you because I want to make sure you are getting the full benefit of whatever way you are getting collagen into your system. Yes, bone broth is the preferred natural way, but sometimes a supplement comes into play and personally I do take a collagen hydrolysate protein powder daily.
In my opinion, when we are choosing to incorporate certain nutrient and supplements to help our bodies the more information we have the better. Knowing when to implement them and what with will only give you a better chance at achieving the goal you are trying to achieve with that given nutrient or supplement. I love to eat and like to get my nutrients through foods, but at the same time, I know that sometimes I need to supplement too and only have two that I use. Do your research and choose your ways wisely. Check out the link below for further information, it is a long read but if you scan down toward "Nutritional Interventions to Improve Soft-Tissue Function" section you will find the information that I pulled my findings from. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5371618/… Train hard, Train Smart, and Have Fun, Deanna   Towards the end of January, I posted about how sleep can help with bone health, in fact here is the link to my blog just in case you missed it, https://bit.ly/2GzEnnN, and my clients and I have also been talking about tart cherry juice as an aid for sleeping. So, of course, it only made sense that I should mention foods that could help.
I mean who doesn’t like to eat, I know I do especially when I know that the nutrients from those foods will help repair my body from all that I put it through, help it function properly and assist in sleeping too. I am not a big tea drinker and many of you already know about warm milk, there is plenty of information out there on those that I am going to skip that one. Check out this list of fruit that contains melatonin to help you fall asleep faster. Tart Cherry Juice or Whole Tart Cherries Pineapples Oranges Bananas Other foods that can help are: Complex Carbs - Can help with your serotonin levels. A Handful of Nuts - Can help to regulate your sleep and wake cycle. Cottage Cheese - Contain the amino acid tryptophan that can help increase your serotonin levels. If you are having problems sleeping and would like to go the more natural route, which I always suggest, give some of these a try. You may have to play around with a combination of things or you may find that just one certain one helps. Also, consider adding fruit and vegetables that are high in antioxidants since they can help counteract the stress from a sleep disorder. If you would like some more information, here is the link I used for my post. https://www.sleepfoundation.org/articles/food-and-drink-promote-good-nights-sleep Train Hard, Train Smart, and Have Fun, Deanna  My last blog I mentioned a couple of signs about overtraining and decided that I wanted to touch on this a little bit more. There are two very important reasons why I wanted to talk about overtraining.
1. Overtraining can lead to injury, which can have you working out differently and the possibility of achieving those health goals at a later time than you wanted. 2. Overtraining can lead to burnout, which can lead to you not working on those health goals. Our training and nutrition are like a tightrope that we are trying to keep our balance on to get to the other side where our goals are. When we don’t make sure we have a good balance of both of those and start going to hard or too much on the training we risk the chance of falling off that rope and having to build back up to it. According to the ACE article below two common ways that get people in trouble are 1. Too much exercise without enough recover 2. Chronic underfueling. I know I have seen clients, friends and even myself fall off that tight rope, get back on, and find that balance again, which affected the goal we were all trying to achieve. If you think you are starting to see a decrease in your performance, your appetite is changing, can’t sleep, or any of the other signs mentioned in the article, step back and review what is going on and get some help if needed by talking with a health professional. I am here to help you anyway that I can, just reach out and let's talk. https://www.acefitness.org/education-and-resources/lifestyle/blog/6466/9-signs-of-overtraining Train hard, train smart, and have fun, Deanna |