Diary of Lionel-Richie — Your Muscles Remember What You Forgot

Have you ever stopped working out for a while, returned to it, and suddenly wondered who gave your body permission to hurt this much?

That was basically me recently.

I used to do my routine workouts, but at some point I stopped. Now that I've started again, my body has been reminding me that apparently, it did not forget what happened during those workouts.

After my routine workout early in the morning, I took my bath, freshened up and joined my uncle's family for morning worship.

After that, I started preparing to leave for school.

But I was already feeling tired and weak, partly because of the pains I was feeling around my body. And that got me curious about something.

Why does returning to exercise after a break sometimes hurt more than we expect?

There is actually a name for this: its called DOMS- which stands for Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness.

It can happen when you place an unfamiliar load on your muscles, especially when you start a new exercise or return to one after being inactive for a while. The soreness usually doesn't appear immediately. It can develop hours later and may be strongest around 24 to 72 hours after the exercise.

So that painful feeling doesn't necessarily mean something is wrong.

It can simply be your body adapting to a workload it hasn't experienced recently.

One thing I also found interesting is that being sore isn't proof that a workout was successful. You can have a productive workout without waking up the next day feeling like you've been fighting for your life.

That part was interesting to me because when people talk about workouts, "no pain, no gain" is almost treated like a rule.

Apparently, it isn't that simple.

For someone returning to exercise, gradually increasing the intensity is generally better than trying to immediately continue from where you stopped.

And that is something I probably need to remember myself.

After getting ready, I headed to school, not because I had lectures, but because there was an important departmental activity.

As one of the departmental executive, we had to conduct the House of Assembly election for Medical Laboratory Science.

They were supposed to elect positions including the Chief Speaker, Deputy Speaker, Clerk, Majority Leader and Minority Leader. After several minutes of introductionof important dignitaries, the election process began proper. Ranging from highest office position to the last one. It was free and fair. Eventually everyone left happily.

Let me show you some snap shots of the process and the attendees as well.

After the election, I stayed around for a while and caught up with some of my colleagues who had also come to school for different reasons. We talked, laughed and did more expensive jokes. Anytime i am with my colleagues, i love taking a lot of unaware pictures of anyone; like among my people, I'm known for that. So everyone always stay at guard whenever I'm around.

But today's unaware went wrong. You should see me laughing right now. She literally caught me while i was in the act. From the picture, you can see she has her eyes on me already. Funny. So my unawares didn’t go perfect this time.

So, the day started bleeding into nightfall. By the time I eventually headed home, I was already looking forward to one thing.

Food.

My cousin had told me I would be coming home to eat their father's native soup called "NSANA".

And yes, I did.

I enjoyed the food so much that I actually forgot to take a picture until later. I still managed to get one eventually, though.

I guess you want to see how it looks like. Fine. Feed your eyes.

After eating, I took my bath, rested and finally allowed my tired body to settle down.

So today's little lesson for me was simple:

When you return to something after a long break, don't expect your body to pick up exactly where you left off.

Sometimes, you have to remind your muscles too.

September 16, 2026