Muscles shaking or shivering during workouts is common and is taken as a sign that the load is beyond the person’s current fitness level. It is much more than overloading, though with factors ranging from lack of adequate rest between reps, to depleted energy reserves causing it.
Pushing through and continuing with your schedule while the muscles shiver is considered a great way to maximise gains. However, it may not always be good, say experts. Understanding the reason why the muscles are shivering could help you decide whether you should keep pushing or give it a break. That decision could prove the difference between a great workout and one marred by what was an easily avoidable injury.
Why do muscles shiver/shake during exercise?
There could be various reasons why muscles shiver while working out.
If the air conditioning in the gym is set to a low temperature, that could trigger shivering as part of the body’s thermoregulation process.
“If the place of workout is too cold, and they have not warmed up properly, or you’ve just got up from sleep, and rushed into the gym, not prepared mentally and physiologically, they could lead to shivering of muscles,” says Aamir Bharmal, fitness coach at HealthifyMe, Bengaluru.
Physiological readiness entails the kicking in of the endocrine system which releases the hormones that take one through the course of an intense workout.
Shivering is also a sign of building muscles and forming new neural adaptations. “When your muscles contract and expand it is the motor neurons/nervous system that is firing that impulse or signal to contract a muscle,” explains Bharmal. “While the movement is the same, the amount of neural fibers that need to fire will be very dependent on the load and the energy. If your neurons are not able to fire properly it leads to twitching and shivering.”
Lack of energy, sleep/rest, improper nutrition, and stress can also lead to muscles shaking during workout.
Is muscle shivering good during workouts?
Muscles shivering while working out is dependent on many factors including the experience of the person, fitness as well as age. If the person is more advanced in terms of fitness, then they will have the muscle control to perform exercises intensely without shivering. In fact, shivering can be considered as an indicator or signal the body is giving about the intensity of the workout. And people who are seasoned can use shivering for gain without injuring themselves.
Beginners, though, should completely avoid shivering while doing exercises, experts say. It would mean pushing to and beyond the point of exhaustion and could lead to injuries.
“If a person is not well prepared or they do not know the exercise or have experience with that particular exercise, it could lead to injury. Experience here means the same movement under different loads,” adds Bharmal. “So, if a person is training for power, they need not shiver at all. If they are training for hypertrophy [muscle growth], they could go close to failure. So a little bit of shivering is acceptable.”
Even if a person is seasoned fitness enthusiast or gym goer, they should ensure not to reach the shivering point while trying a movement or exercise that has not been done in a very long time, or while trying something new. The experience (muscle and neural adaptations and muscle memory) with that particular exercise would still be low and they should ideally not push themselves to the limit.
Shivering can be used as a measure of fitness by keeping track of the shivering point (numbers/load and time) and then slowly increasing the threshold.
“For example, for time-based exercises like planks, you time and see at what point you really start shivering and you work on improving that time,” adds Bharmal.
As you push yourself day after day, you automatically get the confidence to push yourself a little more and slowly. Even a beginner can start incorporating shivers provided they have an understanding when to stop.
Push with caution though as what works for one person may not work for everyone, says Bharmal.
“Everyone’s physiology is different,” adds Bharmal. “If shivering works for some, it need not necessarily work for others. Even if you remove the risk of injury, and you are looking just at muscle building or muscle adaptation, even then tread carefully as individual responses will vary.”
How to avoid shivering while exercising?
Beginners can focus a little more on cardio and a more emphasis on warm up. This will ensure shivering related to thermoregulation does not happen.
They should be mindful that if they shiver during a workout, they are pushing too far. There is no need to go to that extent. The trick is to understand the body and regulate the intensity.
“To avoid shivering, keep the load optimal and perform an exercise with a new load only in the presence of a professional spotter,” says Dhananjay Sharma, exercise and sports physiologist from Delhi.
Takeaways
- Muscles shivering during workouts could mean that the body has been pushed to the point of exhaustion or beyond. It could lead to injuries.
- When neurons are not able to fire properly during muscle contraction and expansion, it leads to muscle twitching which can cause shivering.
- If you are a seasoned gym goer or fitness enthusiast, then muscle shivering can be regulated and tapped into for gains, using shaking muscles as an indicator or measure of intensity. However, push cautiously, say experts.
