What Happens if You Work Out With Strained Muscles?

Exercise Principles

Exercising your heart muscle as many days as you can via moderately vigorous exercises such as bicycling, running and walking is the best way to improve your cardiovascular fitness. However, exercising your skeletal muscles every day via strenuous exercises such as sprinting and weightlifting is counterproductive. Your skeletal muscles have microscopic tears the day after you strenuously exercise. This is a good thing. The soreness caused by the tears indicates that you exercised enough to strengthen your muscles. Larger tears are strained muscles. Regardless of the size of the tears, you should rest for about 48 hours before exercising strenuously again, according to “The Merck Manual of Medical Information.” Resting skeletal muscles allows them to heal and become stronger. Exercising them too soon makes them weaker.

Muscle Injuries

Strains are muscle injuries. They shouldn’t be confused with sprains, which are injuries to ligaments -- the tissue that connects bones. Strained muscles are often called pulled muscles. They are the most minor of the three kinds of muscle tears and generally occur when inflexible muscles are pushed as hard as flexible muscles should be pushed, according to “Swim, Bike, Run.” Pain signals you have a strained muscle. Exercising with a first-degree muscle tear increases your chances of sustaining a second- or third-degree muscle tear. A second-degree muscle tear causes sudden and sharp pain as well as swelling. A third-degree muscle tear is a rupture that must be surgically repaired and could prevent you from exercising for several months.

Affected Muscles

Your hamstring and groin muscles are the most likely to be strained, according to “Fitness For Dummies.” Your hamstrings, the muscles in the back part of your thighs, and your groin muscles, the muscles in the inner part of your thighs, are often pulled because they’re not stretched properly before the exercise begins. A proper warm-up exercise creates warm muscles, and warm muscles stretch further during exercises. Pain while straightening your leg indicates you have a pulled hamstring muscle. Pain while lifting your leg indicates you have a pulled groin muscle. In both cases, you should stop exercising immediately so you can avoid a second- or third-degree muscle tear.

Preventing Strains

A five-minute warm-up routine before beginning to exercise strenuously can prevent most strained muscles. Exercise expert Dr. Kenneth Cooper recommends slow toe-touching, bending your torso from side to side while your arms are extended above your head, and stretching your back and leg muscles. Cooper also recommends not starting your exercise too vigorously. Running slowly before sprinting, for example, is better than sprinting immediately.

Treating Injuries

Rest is the best way to treat strained muscles. Muscles heal faster than bones, ligaments and tendons because they have higher blood flows. Strained muscles are often healed within two days. Ice can expedite the healing process. Second-degree tears require three days of treatment with ice followed by a few days of treatment with heat. Third-degree tears require surgery.