It’s hardly surprising that athletes and very active people experience occasional muscle fatigue. Working out, especially when you push yourself to go that extra step, is exactly what brings it on. But muscle fatigue is counter-productive to your workout goals. There are ways you can train that will prevent it happening.
Workouts and muscles
The point of working out is to gradually burn all the energy currently stored in your muscles. Because you can’t replenish the energy fast enough to keep up with a challenging exercise routine, your muscles tire out by the end of the workout. In fact, you want to feel temporarily weak at the end of a good workout.
The problem is when your strength doesn’t return soon after a workout. That lingering weakness is muscle fatigue.
Training to combat muscle fatigue
To prevent muscle fatigue, you need to increase your endurance – the rate at which your body replenishes its energy while expending it at a challenging rate. Your muscles get energy from oxygen until that supply runs out; then they convert stored glucose into energy. If you run out of glucose, muscles begin to feed on themselves, which is the cause of muscle fatigue (and also counter-productive to your workout goals).
What you must learn to do is maximize the oxygen available to your muscles while you’re working out. You can also, especially at the beginning, use electrolyte-rich beverages like Gatorade to help (by providing glucose in lieu of oxygen). In more common sports terms, what you need to do is increase your endurance.
Maximizing your endurance
How do you increase your endurance? There are a number of ways:
- Stretch before you work out. This gets the oxygen flowing to your muscles.
- Breathe deeply throughout your workout. If you can’t breathe very deeply, consider yoga or another discipline that focuses on deep, steady breathing to increase your ability.
- Pace yourself. Don’t work out above your current fitness level, thinking it’ll make you stronger. By sticking to what you can do without fatigue, you’ll gradually increase your strength and endurance.
- Stay hydrated. Water is part oxygen, so giving your cells water to break down increases the oxygen available to them.
