With a new appreciation of exercise and its benefits, Christine O'Connor is put though her paces.
Athletes (I just qualify, as an amateur) and those who love intense exercise may be acquainted with the acronym Doms: delayed onset muscle soreness, a common result of physical activity that stresses muscle tissue beyond the point to which it is accustomed.
Effects are usually fully experienced several days afterwards. For me, a good muscle ache is my new black. I love wearing the feeling of heaviness or tiredness in my muscles, as it lets me know I have done a challenging workout.
That slight discomfort during movement indicates to me that there are changes occurring underneath the epidermal layer. No pain, no gain! To learn more I booked a session with trainer Damian Keen at Let's Go Fitness to chew the fat, so to speak.
We discussed the recovery period following exercise. Damian explained that after a muscle has been worked, depending on what degree of work it has done, it will contain micro tears. The micro tears that occur after exercise require time to heal.
However, we can assist the recovery process. A worked muscle will be tight, like a clenched fist. This suggests the need for circulation, but mother nature's clock insists that a muscle must slowly relax before healthy volumes of new blood can get into the muscle to begin the clean up and healing process.
Damian showed me a few ways to aid this process, ensuring rich blood flow is introduced to a muscle while it is being manually relaxed and explained that a tight muscle has squeezed the blood out like a sponge, depriving the tissues of vital nutrients and energy needed to repair it.
Massage will allow food and oxygen to return to the muscle more quickly, speeding recovery. So we grabbed a foam roller and set about using it as a tool to squeeze out the ''old'' fluid that carries the waste products of muscle breakdown.
Damian had me lie on my front and while he rolled the back of my legs with the roller I told him my warped imagination was showing myself as a garment going through the manual wringer on old style washing machines, the type I remember my mother having when I was a toddler.
I am not sure this young buck had any idea what I was babbling on about, but he chuckled politely anyway.
I was also shown a manoeuvre to do on the foam roller that was very effective in targeting the thoracic spine.
As illustrated, I reclined slowly backwards, shoulders positioned just off the tip of the roller, lowering until my hands brushed the floor behind my head. This stretch is a lovely way to rebalance the spine after a long day in the office slumped over a computer, after sport, a workout, gardening or doing the housework.
Finally, we stretched to warm down the muscles. For me this signals the end of a hard workout and my way of repaying my body for all of its persistence.
Damian ended the session with several new stretches for me to try. One was called the Rocking Frog, a really good inner thigh stretch, though not particularly elegant.
I jumped in the shower feeling energised and king of the road. I am a woman athlete. Hear me ... ribbit!