Pulled muscles or PMR

[Fireleigh]

What is the difference between PMR pain and pulled muscles? Tuesday evening gentle Tai chi class seems to have done me in.

[DorsetLady PMRGCAuk volunteer]

Was it first Tai Chi class? If maybe just muscular, if so should soon wear off.

It could be Delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS) - which is muscle pain that begins after you've worked out. It normally starts a day or two after a workout. You won't feel DOMS during a workout. Quite usual with PMR affected muscles.

Pain felt during or immediately after a workout is a different kind of muscle soreness. It's called acute muscle soreness.

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to DorsetLady]

Couldn't have put it better!

The cause is different - PMR pain is inflammation leading to swelling and impaired oxygen supply to the muscles. DOMS is due to tiny tears between the components of the muscle fibres - a perfectly normal effect during training and it is the healing of them which means the muscle is better able to deal with more next time. When you have PMR and exercise the "tears" tend to be more in the first place because the muscle is delicate anyway and less able to heal as well as usual.

[SnazzyD]

The difference is that with pulled muscles you usually start to feel smug that you’ve got away with it. Then bam, you can’t move but it wears off progressively over a few days, depending how much you over did it. Pain killers usually help too.

[piglette]

In my case it is actually a different sort of pain. If you take a painkiller and it works it probably is not the PMR.