[Rocksteady]

Almost every time I exercise I seem to come away with aches and pains and what feels like strained/pulled muscles.

I'm not talking about DOMS that you get from weights, but the actual feeling that the muscle is pulled.

Eg. I'll go for a jog, if I haven't warmed up pre-light jog (and sometimes even if I have) I'll come back with sore/tight quads/hip flexors/groinal zone. They'll be like that for a few days. Even when I go running regularly I have the same problem so that I'm always running with a bit of background pain.
I warm up extensively at the wall, but nearly every session I'll come back and my sides, lower or upper back will ache and feel tight for a few days.
Sometimes I'll even pull a pec doing press ups, despite being able to do quite a lot of them. Doesn't seem to make sense.

Once I train as much as I want to/need to to get better, I'm basically always training through aches and pains, which worries me a bit as exercising with tight/strained muscles seems to me a good way to inhibit movement and end up with real problems.

Does anyone have any idea what's going on here? I'm only in my late 20s, doesn't seem like the body should be done in just yet!
When I was younger I did quite a lot of quite heavy weight-lifting when training for martial arts and wonder if this has anything to do with it - also I've had a bad back in the past and think I still have a pretty suspect core, despite quite a lot of work trying to strengthen it. 

Or do I have naturally/through not stretching enough very short muscles, so I've got to pay particular attention to lengthening them through stretching?
Is it likely I'm missing something in my diet that contributes to this?

I haven't seen a GP about this as it's not that big a deal, and I feel that I'd probably rightly get short shrift, but it doesn't seem right to be walking round with constant muscle aches when in the scheme of things I don't even do that much training.

Working at a desk defo seems to have exacerbated this.

Any thoughts/hints/suggestions from the cognoscenti?

Cheers.

[Scraggadoo]

How much sleep do you get?

Alcohol in your diet?

Do you eat after exercising (if so how long after)?

Stay well hydrated?

Any one of these could be a factor...

[slackline]

Or do I have naturally/through not stretching enough very short muscles, so I've got to pay particular attention to lengthening them through stretching?

Try an experiment on yourself, spend three weeks stretching and see if this reduces aches and pains.

[Dexter]

I have a similar thing and get knotted muscles in my back quite easily. However I find they dont seem to affect my climbing ability and dont hurt when I used them a lot (ie doing hard climbing) so my solution would be just live with it man the hell up  and keep climbing

[mrjonathanr]

  Have you tried recuperative exercise days following training days? eg just easy routes/traverses etc, or a nice swim?
Also what Slack-line said.

[Rocksteady]

Thanks for the replies all.

My problem is that recuperative exercise often causes more muscle aches! 

I think the problem probably lies in weak core and not enough sleep - I reckon I average 7 or less hours per week night, so this has got to be a factor.

Always stay pretty hydrated so not worried there, will try to eat within 15 minutes of finishing training, then again within 2 hours. Which means in the week I eat at like 10.30pm which probably isn't great either.

Yeah, in conclusion I'm going to try to sleep more, stretch more and MTFU!

[Nan]

I find the same that i struggle to get more than 7 hours sleep on week nights. Its usually less which leads up to my body feeling totally broken by the mid week. Out of curiosity how much sleep do most people that train hard get? I know 8hours is what we should be getting but is that enough when training?