These little blurbs talk about the good kind of Post Workout Inflammation. TC says that 48 hours after a workout you get a lot of inflammation and fluid retention ( plus growth hormone) in the muscles you trained. That seems to line up pretty well with your experiences.
'While long suspected, it’s recently become accepted that acute inflammation is essential for muscle growth.
You know those macrophages that march in after an injury occurs? They also march in after a muscle is damaged, only in two waves. The first wave comes soon after muscle fibers are injured and they begin to lyse or dissolve injured muscle fibers. They reach their highest concentration about 24 hours after a workout or muscle injury and their concentration dwindles after about 48 hours.
Then comes a second, Iraq-like “surge” of non-phagocytic macrophages that bathe the injured muscle fibers in the growth hormone IGF-1, which significantly increases the rate of muscle regeneration."