Muscle soreness after a long hike downhill

Factual Questions
1

I’m not seeking medical advice, you are not my doctor etc. I’m trying to understand the underlying mechanism involved.

Last Thursday I went on a 3 mile hike. I took a tram up to the top of a local mountain and proceeded to walk down on a very steep trail to the bottom. The hike took a little over 2 hours. I haven’t done a hike like this is quite a while and I expected my calves and quads to be pretty sore after it was all said and done.

When I completely the hike my legs felt fine, no pain whatsoever, and it wasn’t until the next day that I noticed some soreness, but I had no problem walking up and down stairs. The following day I could barely walk I was so sore, and walking down stairs was nearly impossible. The following day I was still very sore, but I tried to keep moving as best I could.

So why was there a 2 day delay in the pain? Whatever damage was done happened on day 1, and there was no pain at that time. Day 2 there was some pain, but really not that much. By day 3 I could hardly walk. Did it really take 3 days for my muscles to produce the lactic acid that was causing the pain?

It’s now day 5 and things are pretty much back to normal, which I assume means the lactic acid has been flushed from my system. Is this a fairly normal progression based on the level of activity involved?

2

As you age, the time it takes your body to respond changes.

Oh, and it takes slightly different muscles to walk downhill, than up hill.

3

Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness

4

^ Shouldn’t we be hearing from hiking coach? :slight_smile:

5

He walked away from the boards years ago. You don’t remember?

6

I regularly see this in younger people, too.

7

That’s f’sure! I remember the aches in the front of my shins after walking down the long, steep trail to the bottom of Carlsbad Caverns. I was sore in places I was not at all accustomed to!

And, yeah, it takes a little time for that soreness to develop. You don’t always feel the pain from exercise immediately.

One thing I’ve found about going downhill: with each step, you sort of “hover” and then lower yourself to the next footing. This “letting yourself drop” effect can be really wearying on the knees. I dread steep descents no less than steep climbs: give me a moderate slope, either way, please!

8

He’s partly right. While everyone can experience DOMS, the older you get, the longer recovery takes.

9

Try walking uphill backwards (even a very gentle slope). I’ve tried a bit of this while hiking, and I’ve seen others doing it too.

It definitely exercises a different set of muscles way more than those muscles are accustomed to! It’s noticeably more difficult and those muscles get real tired real fast.

10

I’ve always experienced the greatest pain from intense exercise the day after the day after.
Even when I was a spritely young thing, so don’t worry…perfectly normal.

11

Thank everyone. I’ll chalk it up to live and learn, and won’t take on these long downhill hikes without doing some training for them before hand.

12

Hey, everyone, Voice of Doom, here. Two words for you: shin splints.

Not fun. Don’t really understand them.