Stretch for acid bath

[drakesdoom]

I had a though today about muscles.

Muscles produce lactic acid as part of the glycolysis cycle. It is my understanding that the buildup of this acid is what causes your muscles to get sore during heavy work loads. The muscles can easily outpace the bodies ability to remove the acid and they can only have so much acid in the tissue and still function.

Now when you stretch you can get a very similar feeling, my thought was that there is always some acid wrapped up deep in the muscle and that when you stretch it is dislodged and that's what you are feeling. Thus you are giving yourself an acid bath.

Probably total bs as biology was always my weakest science, there is a reason I like machines.

[Paprika]

There are stretch receptors (special neurones) embedded within muscle tissue that fire off a signal when you overstretch the muscles, it's that that gives the burn from stretching. A long term acid bath like that, even at lactic acid's relatively high ph, would do nasty damage to your muscles and stuff so it's all broken down.

[Sirrobert]

I'm going to gues you are thinking about lactate.

This forms when your muscles have to burn glucose WITHOUT oxigen. aka Anaerobic (an=non, Aerobic=air. Or something in that stretch)

This happends if you have to provide bursts of energy, for example when you are sprinting. If you sprint for 5 seconds, you hardly breathe during that time.

To much buildup will indeed start to hurt, giving muscle ache and stuf like that.

Your 'similar feeling' is probably also muscle ache, which ALSO gets induced if you tear your muscles a little bit. This happends, indeed, if you stretch your muscles to much.

Nothing to do with acid

[softweir]

To add to what Sirrobert said, the "tearing" in stretched muscles is often because muscle fibres are not of even length, and those which are shorter can become overextended and damaged during an excessive stretch. The fix is to stretch the muscle under moderate load a few times a day, then increase the load and the extent of the stretch - this stimulates the shorter fibres to extend without doing undue damage.

[Sirrobert]

To add to what Sirrobert said, the "tearing" in stretched muscles is often because muscle fibres are not of even length, and those which are shorter can become overextended and damaged during an excessive stretch. The fix is to stretch the muscle under moderate load a few times a day, then increase the load and the extent of the stretch - this stimulates the shorter fibres to extend without doing undue damage.

AKA: warmups before you start your workout. And regular workouts. If your muscles are used to exersice, they won't tear as much

EDIT: ofcourse, 'tearing' is not actually what happends. But it's the easiest way to explain it

Edited July 4, 2013 by Sirrobert