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Muscle Soreness All Over and Building a Shelter

caters

Sage
In my story Life on Kepler Bb Lisa has muscle soreness all over after carrying a bear she just killed to the shelter.

Here is the hunting scene:

Lisa went into the woods and was careful not to make a single sound. Her extreme night vision kicked in. She could see the same way a rattlesnake does. That is both color and heat at the same time.

Lisa saw a deer and was getting her bow and arrow ready when she saw a bear coming towards her. She shot the bear several times and then with all her strength she carried it home.​

Here is the home scene when she finally lets go of the bear:

Lisa said “A bear almost got me but I got him first.”

Robin said “A bear! Oh my you look sore. Are you okay?”

Lisa said “ No, I am not okay. I am sore. All my muscles are sore. Can you cook the bear?”

Robin said “Of course I can. I have had to hunt and cook by myself for 21 years.”


Now these humanoids are naturally very strong. Much stronger than we are. But carrying the bear required both strength and endurance which Lisa just lost when she got home. When she is home she feels very weak and sore all over. Robin lets Lisa rest because of her extreme muscle soreness.

I remember when I had to carry things from an auction that were heavier than I am. Some of those were loads of 200 lbs or more. I didn't have near 200 lbs of body mass(I had more like 140-150 lbs of body mass) but with a lot of my strength I carried those 200 lbs + loads. I don't remember having any muscle soreness afterwards but then again the difference in mass between the bear and Lisa is much more than between the loads from the auction and my body mass. Also I might have had muscle soreness and just didn't remember it.

So this extreme muscle soreness minutes after all her strength is used up probably means that she injured a lot of her muscles. This all over muscle injury is very serious.

Since Robin knows how to build anything should he make an orogastric tube and give her food and water that way so that her muscles can heal up? He does love Lisa but building a shelter is important as is getting food and letting Lisa rest while her muscles heal. So should he continue building the shelter or should he build an orogastric tube first and then continue building the shelter?

Would the rain that follows help with the muscle injury at all by like reducing blood flow from a decrease in temperature or something?​
 

Vaporo

Inkling
Rain could have a soothing effect on your character's muscles just from the feeling of water running over her skin. Coldness could help numb the muscles, but if the rain is so cold that it causes numbness your characters probably don't want to be standing in it for too long. It wouldn't help the rate of healing at all, though. In fact, coldness would probably decrease it.

What kind of shape is your character in? When I ran cross country for the first time, I was sore all day. After a few weeks, I wasn't sore at all. If they're used to carrying heavy loads, they likely won't feel much soreness.
 
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caters

Sage
Lisa used to be in very good shape. She had her own muscle building chamber for gaining and toning muscle. But her parents died of disease when she was 15. Since then she hasn't been carrying very heavy loads like she used to. She has only carried loads that are either a bit heavier than her or lighter for 11 years to increase her chance of survival. Robin however has carried very heavy loads ever since his parents died when he was 5. He had to deal with muscle injury for 21 years.

So to me it isn't surprising that after Lisa carried a bear that she lost her strength and a lot of her muscles are injured.
 

Penpilot

Staff
Article Team
Soreness isn't necessarily a sign of injury. Soreness is actually quite natural after a workout and can be taken as a sign that you stressed your muscles in a good way.

When you put your muscles under heavy load, you create micro tears in them, which can lead to soreness, but soreness doesn't always happen. These micro tears are part of the process of how you build muscle. When your body repairs the tears your muscles become stronger.

Soreness can last around three days. Any longer and you probably over did it.

Recovery time from soreness is dependant on rest, nutrient intake, and time between stressing the muscles again. If you don't eat the proper foods and get enough rest, you're muscles won't have the building blocks to repair and build. This can lead to injury over time.

If your muscles are sore for more than a week, then it's probably not soreness at all. It's probably a strain or a tear, which is bad. Strains and tears can be mild to severe and will affect mobility and strength depending on severity and location.

As for rain helping, yes and no. There are different schools of thought on this. Marathon runners say that ice baths help in their recovery and allow them to get back to training sooner. But studies have shown mixed results, from definitely helping to actually increasing soreness.

In addition, a person of reasonable shape should be able to lift their own body weight, so if your humaniods are stronger than humans then their thresholds will probably be higher.


If you want more info, you can google all more stuff up. More than I know for sure.
 
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K.S. Crooks

Maester
Instead of Lisa being sore she could be exhausted and her muscles completely depleted. After hunting and saving her own life and then hiking back carrying a bear her energy reserves would be empty and the drop in adrenaline an other hormones would leave her body wanting to shut down and recover from the entire ordeal. Think of it as a person finishing a triathlon- they are not inured or sore they are drained some to the point of passing out after they will themselves across the finish line. It would completely realistic if she got back to the shelter with bear and collapsed from fatigue. When Lisa wakes she'll probably want to eat huge amount.
 

caters

Sage
I don't think an orogastric tube is really needed.
Why? If her arm muscles are injured then it would hurt to grab food to eat and using injured muscles leads to more muscle injury(both in terms of more muscles injured and in terms of how severe the injury is). This is why I thought of using an orogastric tube to feed Lisa is so she could rest and not have to use her injured muscles much which is great because then her soreness would decrease and in a few weeks she will be better. Her arm muscles would probably take the longest to heal since they took most of the load and thus would likely have the most severe injuries. Her abs, chest, and back on the other hand probably have the least severe injuries and would be completely healed from a few days to a week or 2 both because of the low load they took and the fact that they are stability muscles. Robin is not only good at building things but he is also the family doctor and takes a natural approach if possible to things like breach birth and nausea but sometimes has to build something to help someone(In this case Lisa with her all over muscle soreness and muscle injury).

How else could Robin feed Lisa and minimize the use of her injured muscles? Every method that I can think of besides the orogastric tube either has risks of asparation(breathing something into the lungs besides air) or involves using her injured muscles which as I said earlier can lead to more muscle injury and even to the point where the muscle is fully ruptured and balls up(3rd degree) which would most likely require surgery or is standard for treatment of a broken arm but not an arm muscle injury.
 

Vaporo

Inkling
Her jaw and throat would still be functional, so it's not like she can't chew and swallow. Plus, she's had at least a full night's worth of healing, and walking to and from wherever they're keeping their food wouldn't exactly be strenuous. If she's so sore that she can't even move her arms from a plate to her mouth, then your Robin character could just feed her normally instead of resorting to an overcomplicated and somewhat humiliating orogastric tube.
 
As someone who works out strenuosly and builds various shelters regularly, I can say that any type of healing chamber or life support system would be a colossal waste of time, effort, and resources at the given moment. It actually kinda amuses me that one would find muscle soreness so unpleasant to even conceive of such drastic measures needed. While rain won't kill you either, priorities for most species go in order from breathable air being most vital, then shelter from the elements, water, and finally food. That last one is definitely important for healing, but so is staying in motion. Helping with the shelter wouldn't kill her, but it would make her more sore, while staying bedridden will only stiffen her up and worsen things as well, so the least she could do is stretch a bit, walk to get her own damn food, and chew it like a big girl.
 

Jerseydevil

Minstrel
I'm a personal trainer, so I may be of some help here.

First off, soreness usually doesn't occur for several hours after the strenuous activity. For example, I worked my chest and shoulders today, about two hours before writing this. My muscles are tired, not sore. That will come about many hours from now after rest, probably tomorrow morning. There is something called DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness), which can occur up to three days later. Cold water immersion can reduce some of the bodies inflammatory response to stress, which may help with the discomfort and heat increases blood flow, which relaxes and eases some of the pain as well, though scientists are constantly revising which is better. This may be a bit of a placebo effect as well. I personally go with cold immersion, but I'm also sadistic.

Anyway, Lisa is most likely not sore when she arrives with the bear. She is probably exhausted and drained of glycogen. Glycogen is stored in both the muscles and the liver and is the primary energy source for muscles. This is replaced by eating something carbohydrate heavy.

Orogastric tubes are for people that are in comas and can't eat under their own power. If she's totally exhausted, she'll pass out asleep and wake up stiff, but still capable of feeding herself. If you are worried about healing and strain, moving a fork is hardly strenuous enough to cause more injury. Really, soreness is not that big of a deal. Honestly, the character should stretch out a bit, take an Advil, eat something, and carry on with the rest of her life. Soreness is at most an irritation, not debilitating.
 
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