The Ask Amber section is a great way to get your exercise questions answered. Here is a recent question posted to the website:

‘After a good workout people breathe heavily sweat feel weak and may ache. Explain why each of these reactions may be occurring?’

I am going to break down this question into each reaction.

People breath heavily because depending on the workout, they work in different energy systems. When we move into anaerobic energy systems, we work in a state where we don’t have a lot of oxygen avialable to us. Therefore, once we’re done we’re huffin’ and puffin’ to replenish the oxygen that was not present during the work.

Sweating is the bodies way of thermoregulation. As we workout, we increase our body’s internal temperature. To get back to homestasis (or our body’s comfortable temp) we sweat as a cooling mechanism. Some people sweat more than others, it’s just genetic.

The achy part, often comes from our muscles working hard and being challenged. The achyness can be a result of fatigue or from the muscle fibers being torn. The repairing of the muscle fibers ensures a heavier load can be handled in the future. Often, the soreness does not set in for a few days and this is referred to as DOMS Delays Onset Muscle Soreness. The weakness that comes along is from accumlation of lactic acid in the muscles. Once lactic acid is forming, the body wants to slow down so that it can get rid of it.

Thanks for the great questions. This will help many people as they workout!