10/01/2024
Concept of muscle fatigue
It is great news that increasing number of people are exercising actively, however, too much of anything can have the opposite effect. Many patients complain to me that after exercising a particular muscle group always feels sore or weak, often lasting for years. Going for massages for the particular muscle group often offers short term reliefs but as soon as the muscle is used again it feels sore.
At this point many people would think that it is because the muscle is not strong enough and so goes to workout more on that particular muscle, only to find out there is not much improvement.
The underlying cause is muscle fatigue (over tension of muscle), the soreness are signals which tell you that the muscle is already past its limit and needs rest and time to heal, more actions done on the muscle itself usually doesn't improve the situation.
In cases like this, which accounts for close to 40% of my patient, the treatment strategy is to re-align structure related to the particular muscle ( e.g the SI joint, tibia/fibula as well as plantar bones if its knee pain) so that the muscle can start to relax and heal, this kind of treatment does not work directly on the site of pain but is very effective in providing long term relief simply because it allows the muscle to heal and relax instead of over-stimulating the site of pain.
