Muscle Burn Is Your Friend
That feeling of your muscles burning is exactly what you want to feel every time you go to the gym. Muscle burn is one of the best indications that you’re exercising at the right intensity. Without it, you won’t get the fitness results you’re looking for.
“Strength Changes Everything” podcast co-hosts Brian Cygan and Amy Hudson explain why the feeling of muscle burn is a positive indication of effective exercise. Labored breathing, slight discomfort and muscle burning are just a few indicators that your exercise is effective. The fast-twitch muscle fibers are the ones that burn during exercise. They burn because you’re tapping into the stored energy of your muscles. This is exactly what you need to get stronger.
Our natural response to muscle burn is to be worried, but it’s OK to keep pushing through. The muscle burn sensation is different from injury pain. The brain is a prediction machine, and we have to intentionally override the survival mechanisms that tell us to stop exercising and preserve some energy in order to achieve the greatest results. Feeling muscle burn during every workout indicates that exercise is being performed at the right intensity to increase strength.
“Strength training is a stimulus that triggers the body to grow stronger,” Brian says. “We know from research that as we grow stronger, we get total body benefits. Improving strength changes every system of the body for the better.”
To learn more about muscle burn and effective exercise, listen to episode 53 of the “Strength Changes Everything” podcast.
