I can't straighten my arms after lifting dumbbells

Nowadays, many people have higher requirements for their body shape, so they choose to go to the gym to exercise. Working out in a gym not only creates a good fitness environment for everyone, but also provides a lot of fitness equipment to choose from. Among them, lifting dumbbells is a good way to exercise arm muscles, but some people find that their arms are very sore and unable to straighten the next day after lifting dumbbells. What's going on?

In sports medicine, exercise-induced muscle soreness is divided into two types: One is pain that occurs immediately after exercise but disappears quickly, which is called acute muscle soreness. The other type occurs a few hours or overnight after exercise, accompanied by fatigue, and even muscle cramps and stiffness. This type of muscle pain disappears relatively slowly, and it often takes 3 to 4 days or even 6 to 7 days to fully recover. This symptom is called delayed muscle soreness or post-exercise fatigue. The muscle soreness we often talk about mainly refers to the latter type, namely delayed onset muscle soreness. There is a clear difference between muscle soreness and a strain. In fact, muscle soreness is a normal and positive physiological phenomenon.

People often experience obvious muscle soreness and discomfort after strength training or an exercise that they are not used to (such as high intensity of exercise or a new sport). These symptoms will disappear naturally after a period of rest, and when the same exercise is performed again, the muscle soreness symptoms will be significantly reduced or will not occur. However, muscle strain caused by exercise is different. Muscle or ligament strain can cause large-area pathological changes in skeletal muscle, such as cell degeneration, cell necrosis, etc., which not only affects continued exercise or training, but may also bring more serious consequences. Self-identification of strains and muscle soreness Muscle and ligament strains occur suddenly due to an damaging movement, while muscle soreness gradually worsens.

There is a way to distinguish between the two: muscle soreness can be relieved by stretching, but if it is a sports injury, stretching will make the pain worse.

In short, muscle soreness after exercise and muscle (or ligament) damage are completely different in nature. Muscle soreness can be relieved by rest, stretching, massage, etc. Muscle (or ligament) injuries must be solved by medical means. Why do muscles ache? The mechanism of muscle soreness is relatively complex.

It mainly includes the following aspects:

① Lactic acid accumulation.

②Muscle spasm.

③ Damage to muscle fibers or connective tissue.

④Other factors. Changes in interstitial osmotic pressure or acute inflammation can also cause muscle soreness. How lactic acid is produced: Human exercise requires energy. If the energy comes from aerobic metabolism in cells, it is aerobic exercise; but if the energy comes from anaerobic glycolysis, it is anaerobic exercise. During aerobic exercise, glucose is metabolized into water and carbon dioxide, which can be easily excreted from the body through breathing and are harmless to the human body. During anaerobic exercise, glucose is fermented into a large amount of intermediate metabolites such as lactic acid, which cannot be eliminated through breathing, resulting in lactic acid accumulation. Self-treatment of muscle soreness: Rest can relieve muscle soreness, slowly promote blood circulation, accelerate the elimination of metabolic products, and eliminate the supply and repair of nutrients to the muscle sore area, resting it back to normal. Static stretching of muscles can accelerate muscle relaxation and relieve antagonist muscles, which helps the recovery of spastic muscles. Perform static stretching exercises on the sore area, maintain the stretch for 2 minutes, then rest for 1 minute, and repeat. Doing this stretching exercise several times a day can help relieve spasms. Patting massage is used to massage the sore areas to relax the muscles, promote muscle blood circulation, and help repair injuries and relieve spasms. Of course, you can also perform self-relaxation treatment, generally focusing on the neck, back, and limbs, supplemented by the head, chest, and abdomen. The specific techniques are:

1. Beat the waist and back: Make fists with both hands and gently beat the shoulders, back and waist. You can also use a patting stick to alternately pat your shoulders, back, waist, and lower limbs. When patting, pay attention to lightly patting the back and heavier on the lower limbs.

2. Leg massage: Massage the anterior inner and anterolateral sides of the thighs repeatedly from top to bottom.

3. Shake your legs: Stand or sit, relax your leg muscles and shake them, while moving your ankle joints up and down, left and right in a circular motion.

4. Push Yintang: Use the thumbs of both hands to push from Yintang point (center of eyebrows) to the left and right to the temples. Repeat 8 to 10 times. Pause for 5 to 10 seconds between each time. Then spread the five fingers apart and push from the hairline on the forehead to Baihui point 5 to 6 times. Repeat this operation 30 times with 5 to 10 seconds interval each time.

5. Massage the chest and abdomen: Massage the chest from top to bottom, repeat 20 times; then massage the abdomen in a circular motion from left to right, repeat 20 times. Hot compress is the most effective method. Applying hot compress to the sore local muscles can promote blood circulation, improve metabolism, and accelerate the relief and recovery of muscle soreness. Especially when combined with light stretching exercises or massage, it will speed up the elimination of delayed muscle soreness and promote its recovery to normal.