It's true what they say -- that if you did a hard workout and you feel just fine -- wait a day or two and it will hit you like a truck.
This phenomenon is not an old wives (athletes?) tale, it's proven fact. There's even a name (with an acronym!) for it: DOMS -- Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness.
This happens especially at the beginning of a new exercise routine -- like when you start running, or you start doing hill intervals or you start a personal training program led by a sadistic...(nah..nah...I love her...that's the pain talking).
Monday night's personal training session and subsequent Tae Bo class caught up with me on the drive home last night. All of a sudden, it hurt to hold the steering wheel and my body felt like I'd been jumping rope for a half hour. That's when I remembered...oh...yeah, I'd been jumping rope (or something akin to it) 24 hours prior.
Ouch.
According to the article I linked to above DOMS is caused by "microscopic tearing of the muscle fibers."
Sounds scary, right?
Except that this is how muscle is built. It grows back together stronger.
I have a picture hanging on the wall in my office. It's of a beautiful brown horse and contains an excerpt from a book:
"...see how the flesh grows back across a wound, with a great vehemence, more strong than the simple, untested surface before. There's a name for it on horses, when it comes back darker and raised: proud flesh, as all flesh is proud of its wounds, wears them as honors given out after battle, small triumphs pinned to the chest." -- Jane Hirschfield, from "For What Binds Us"
So, I'm building "proud flesh." Doesn't that sound cool?
Doesn't make my body feel any better right now, but....that will come. It will come back, stronger, tougher and, hopefully, buffer.
I have my second P.T. training session late this afternoon.