Muscle Soreness After a Marathon

Audio Transcript

Coach Jeff: Hey everyone. Welcome back to the runners connect daily podcast. I’m here with you today.

Today’s question comes from Michelle.

Michelle: After I run marathons and ultra-marathons I get extreme discomfort in my calf muscles and I wondered if this is due to nutrition, hydration or running form.

It normally lasts for about 20 minutes and then its more painful than any of the running that I do.

Jeff: Thank you so much for the question Michelle. As I understand it, the question that you’re asking means that you’re getting calf soreness and extreme pain, probably cramping after the race.

This is something that’s common. Basically, what’s happening is that when we look at the actual research done on the amount of muscle damage that happens during a marathon and an ultra-marathon, we can see from the research that there is considerable muscle damage that happens during the race.

Probably what’s happening in your case is that there is extreme muscle damage to your calf muscles and therefore they are spasming or cramping up, in the days and weeks after the race because they’ve gone through so much pain.

The most important thing that you need to do, in this case is, after you do marathons and ultra-marathons, you need to focus very hard on the recovery aspect.

Make sure that you do everything you can to get the muscles recovered as quickly as possible.

First thing that I recommend you do, when you finish, is try to continue walking if you can because once you go from such an extreme effort to just sitting right down, that’s going to cause the muscles in your body especially your legs to seize up a little bit like tighten up.

Walking will let the blood flow through the muscles a little bit more and give them a chance to cool down or loosen up and get some fresh blood in there without over exerting themselves like they were for the entire race.

The second thing that you want to do is make sure that you get a good post nutrition. As soon as you can after the race, you want to make sure that you’re taking in some carbohydrates and some proteins.

Ideally, you’re looking at a four to one ratio of carbohydrates to protein so for every four grams of carbohydrate you would want one gram of protein.

Make sure that you’re getting some carbohydrate and then also some protein which help with that muscle recovery. If you’re somebody that does not struggle with stomach problems, then definitely eat as soon as you can something like maybe a bagel with peanut butter, a power bar or anything that is going to get some calories in you. The sooner you can get the calories in you, the better.

If you are somebody that has a very sensitive stomach, or you just finished a race and you just not feeling that great, then I do recommend doing some type of shake.

A, you’re going to need the fluids anyway but B, a shake is really absorbed a lot better by the stomach, so you are able to absorb that and take that down a little bit.

You could do a nutrition product that has a 4:1 ratio of carbohydrate to protein and have that waiting for you.

You can put it in your bag, that you sent to the finish line at the race, and have someone of your family members have that drink for you available.

As you go throughout the the rest of the day and then in the coming days and weeks, focus on making sure that those muscles recover.

Later in the day, do a light massage on your muscles.

Use something like the stick and slightly massage your muscles and your calves, especially in your case.

That way you can get out any of the muscle soreness and you can start loosening up the muscles getting blood flow in there.

Don’t go to hard on anything. Don’t really dig in. This type of massage is what they call F. large which is where they basically are focusing on blood flow.

You don’t want to be doing anything like trigger point therapy. You to focus on making sure that you’re getting blood flow to the muscles.

Through the rest of the day you also want to make sure like maybe three, four, five hours, after the race that you’re getting in a good meal again.

It is important that you get in a quality meal anywhere from 500 to 800 calories and you don’t need the four to one ratio of carbohydrate to protein here, but we do want to have a good mix of carbohydrates, proteins, and even a little bit of fat.

The immediate post-race meal or post-race beverage or whatever it may be, is going to be something that the muscle soak in immediately.

The second one that we’re talking about here is going to be what allows your body to really kick start the recovery process because without those nutrients, the body just can’t recover.

Throughout the rest of the days leading after, I recommend an ice bath, contrast bath which is hot and cold or just hot water and making sure that you stretch.

I don’t think you really should be running much in the days after a race. If anything, maybe a mile or two but I would recommend rather walking then actually running.

You can also do like a bike or something where there’s no impact and you are just getting the muscles and the blood flowing and then hot baths will help as well.

If you seat in a bath for 10 to 15 minutes and just let the kind of hot water, go over there and then make sure that you do a good stretch afterwards.

If you do some active stretching that’s going to help get the muscles a little bit there so those are my recommendations. Like I said, I think your problem is in the days and even weeks after a marathon.

There is extreme muscle damage that is happening and, so you want to make sure you do everything you can to eliminate that muscle damage and to help the body recover as quickly as possible.

That is going to be something that should take away a lot of that calf soreness that you’re having or if anybody’s listening to any muscle soreness that you’re having after that.

I hope that answer helps you recover from these marathons and marathons I know that’s not a great experience nothing that you want to see.

I’ll be back tomorrow with the next question, so I want to thank everybody for listening today and I hope you have a great run today.