Do muscles actually TEAR when you workout??

[stealth_maven]

I personally don't believe this anymore. It's some kind of simple and horrible way to explain what goes on with muscle fibers. But I honestly don't see them tearing, for tissue to tear, it should hurt extensively, cause scar tissue, and take long than a few days to heal. Over time if the muscles did tear, all the muscle tissue would be replaced with scar tissue.

So seriously here, whats going on to the muscle? I can handle the mumbo jumbo of physiology.

[bigredelts]

I personally don't believe this anymore. It's some kind of simple and horrible way to explain what goes on with muscle fibers. But I honestly don't see them tearing, for tissue to tear, it should hurt extensively, cause scar tissue, and take long than a few days to heal. Over time if the muscles did tear, all the muscle tissue would be replaced with scar tissue.

So seriously here, whats going on to the muscle? I can handle the mumbo jumbo of physiology.

They tear much more different than say your skin tearing. When you workout, the stress you put on your muscles causes the small muscle fibers to break as it contracts. You don't feel this pain because they are very minor, unless you do something incorrectly and pull muscles. That is why it is so important to have the proper nutrients and amount of protein before and after your workout. The muscle fibers will begin to repair themselves, hopefully growing bigger.

[liftingbuddy1]

From what basic understanding I have....

You tear down the muscles in the gym through resistance training, creating micro-tears in the muscles. You then eat to fuel muscle repair and you rest so your muscles actually repair themselves, bigger and stronger than before.

^^This is what I've always understood it to be.

Mike

[in10city]

The first phase of muscle injury is immediate mechanical damage. Muscle cells / fibers can get injured from the repeated stretch and strain that the training loads inflict. It's more like micro-trauma because it occurs at a cellular level.

The second phase of muscle injury is associated with changes in the biochemical processes within muscle tissue following intense exercise - which includes inflammation, immune suppression, etc...