Blog

Do you remember when you first started training? You get your first few weeks of training under your belt and for the first time in your life you experience “DOMS” (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness). Your body begins to change shape, you begin to see some form of definition, your muscles begin to grow and you feel amazing. This is the equivalent of a crack dealer giving you your first hit for free, training has bestowed upon you the “Newbie Gains”. You are now addicted. 

This honeymoon period can last anywhere from a few weeks to a few months, until all of a sudden, WALLOP! You wake up one morning and these aren’t DOMS you’re now feeling, this is something different. Actual pain. Knees, Shoulders, Wrists etc. You’re injured as shit and you may as well retire now… not quite. 

When you first begin to train, we’ll use Weightlifting as an example, your body goes through numerous physiological changes. As you begin to Squat, Pull and Press, your musculature will begin to adapt and grow to handle the load placed upon it. This is great and this adaptation certainly contributes to us becoming stronger, but it is not the only piece to the puzzle. 

Whilst the muscles of the body grow and adapt within a matter of weeks, your tendons and ligaments require significantly more time and repetitions to catch up. This is part of the reasons why ligament injuries take so long to heal, they can require thousands of reps to knit back together. 

When I first started weightlifting, I specifically remember waking up one morning, roughly 3 months after I had begun training. I went to walk down the stairs, and failed. I experienced pains in my knees that I had never felt before and as a result I had to bum shuffle down. I rang my coach and asked for his advice. He laughed, and told me that the pains will simply disappear in a few weeks. He was correct. 

I experienced the same sensation in my wrists, and more recently in my shoulders when I changed my style of Jerking. Just as with my knees, after a few weeks the pain disappeared. Now regardless of how much I would love to be, I’m not Wolverine. I don’t have superhuman healing powers. My ligaments and tendons just simply needed the time to catch up and develop to handle to the load. 

This experience can be known as the “Acclimation Phase”. Your muscles adapt quickly, but the rest of your hardware requires much longer to acclimatise to the new form of training that you have begun. So my advice to you is this, if you are either new to training, or have recently changed your style of training, bear in mind that not everything adapts at the same rate. Give your tendons and ligaments the time they need to catch up. 

If you enjoyed this post, check out my next post “For Time Vs For Quality“.