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Dear Chris,

Sorry to be so long answering your ripped question. Actually all muscles tear a little bit when they are worked hard.  It is the way they get stimulated to regrow stronger.  Whether sore muscles are from lactic acid or from these tears or some combination is still being studied.  But it does appear that the delayed muscle soreness, ie the next day, is from small overstretching tears which then heal with strengthening. There are several ways you can defeat the strengthening, first; by over working the muscle while it is still sore and two; by taking drugs like asprin or ibuprofen to relieve the pain. These seem to stop the pain all right but also short circuit the strengthening.  Now, if the muscle actually tears, rips apart and loses function or gets what we used to call a "charlie horse" that is bad news and has to heal with bleeding, much scar tissue and not good new muscle.  Thanks for a good question.

George Dixon MD