Ross A. Laird

I've come to the end of the first two weeks. So far, the program seems to be working well. I've been focusing on the process as an experiment, as an opportunity for fun, as a communications challenge (e.g. writing these posts). The more I can integrate my fitness plan with my daily life, with other pursuits that I enjoy, the more likely I am to succeed with my plan. If the program becomes simple drudgery, I will quickly fail. In the name of fun and forward progress, I have tried to vary my activities over the last few days: Friday: badminton (including one intense set of rallies with skilled players). Sunday: strength training. Monday: stair walking (I set myself the challenge not to take the elevator in the office building in which I spent the better part of the day). Wednesday: strength training (with emphasis on my leg muscles, which often feel weak). Since my strength training session yesterday, I've noticed some soreness in my legs. I don't mind sore muscles; at least I know I've done vigorous exercise. But it's a curious phenomenon: despite decades of research, we still do not know what causes sore muscles. Like many things in the realm of fitness, the conventional wisdom has been proven wrong many times. That conventional wisdom holds that sore muscles are the result of microscopic tears in the muscle tissue. In the process or repairing those tears, the muscle becomes tender. But no other healing or adaptation process in the human body improves itself by way of damage. Lung function is not made more efficient by damage. Joints do not improve when damaged. Consistently, the body's wisdom forces us to halt behaviors that will damage tissue. And the healing process for tissues that are inadvertently damaged typically restores the tissues to levels of functioning that are equivalent to, or less than, the pre-injury state. (Although broken bones can heal stronger than before the break, the best way to increase your bone strength is not by breaking them). Damaging tissue is not an effective way to make it stronger. Besides, microscopic tears have never been found in muscles after exercise. So what causes delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS)? The most current theory is that muscles, after exercise, will reinforce their tissues -- not because they are damaged but because they are anticipating greater challenges in the future. In this theory, the adaptation of the muscle by way of adding more tissue is what causes the soreness. From Wikipedia:

More recent research (Ji-Guo Yu) claims that DOMS is not caused by the pain from damaged muscle cells, but from the reinforcement process. The muscle responds to training by reinforcing itself up to and above the previous strength by adding new sarcomeres - the segments in the muscle fibrils. This reinforcement process causes the cells to swell, and put pressure on nerves and arteries, causing the DOMS.

This makes more sense than the damage theory. The new theory acknowledges that the body is smart. The next challenge will be Easter weekend: five days of slothful meandering and heavy meals. I'm going to have to be careful...