How To Reduce Muscle Soreness After Working Out
Taking proper care of your body and getting enough sleep and rest are the best ways to prevent and reduce muscle soreness after working out.
Keeping on top of your workouts throughout the week can be very difficult. Juggling your free time against your work and your exercise time can put real pressure on you to get things done. This pressure usually ends in you cutting down on your exercise.
One huge factor in this is the muscle soreness you feel after working out. People have often just dealt with this pain and either worked out regardless or skipped a couple of days. This is not the answer.
How To Reduce Muscle Soreness
There are many proactive ways to deal with this kind of pain and here are just a few of them:
1. Massages
For people who exercise a lot or exercise intensely, massages can work wonders to prevent and treat muscle soreness.
Massages can help increase the blood flow and oxygen in your muscles. This will prevent the lactic acid build-up which is usually the first sign of muscle soreness.
This can be a serious form of medicine for muscles as they help the body recover and grow after exercise.
One issue that many people have is the expense and reliability of finding a good masseuse. Fortunately, many at-home options have become available.
There are options from expensive chair massagers to a more reasonable handheld massager. Both of these can have the same positive effects as an actual massage by a therapist.
2. Warm-Ups And Cool Downs
Preparing your body before your workouts to increase blood flow and flexibility can severely reduce the soreness that you feel after a workout.
This can feel like an annoyance if all you want to do is get stuck in your workout or just finish and begin your day.
However, a light cardio warm-up or a relaxing stretch cool down for 5-10 minutes can really help.
Preparing your muscles and stretching them after a workout allows your muscles to be more flexible. This again increases blood flow which can help reduce the delayed onset muscles soreness.
It may also help you be ready for that next workout meaning you can train harder for longer.
3. Rest Days
Rest days are important for your body to recover and build muscle.
The usual onset for muscle soreness comes around 24-72 hours after your workout so timing your rest days with this can be very helpful.
You cannot work out all of the time and expect to deliver consistent results.
However, this does not mean that you should sit about all day on your rest days. You should try to take part in light activity so that your body enters active recovery.
Activities like stretching, yoga, walks and mobility exercises can make sure that your body maintains the gains you have earned without all of the excess pain.
4. More Ways To Reduce Muscle Soreness
Other tips to help you combat muscle soreness after a tough workout include:
- Taking a warm Epsom salt bath;
- Using heat and cold treatment to increase blood flow and reduce inflammation and swelling;
- Meditating for about 10 minutes;
- Taking supplements such as zinc, magnesium, or vitamin C to speed up muscle recovery;
- Using foam rollers to loose off tight muscles;
- Eating anti-inflammatory foods such as watermelon, ginger, cherries, turmeric, or pineapples;
- Hydrating properly is also important.
Final Thoughts
Sadly, as the saying goes – no pain, no gain. This does not mean that you need to be feeling extreme pain for your workout to be effective though.
Taking steps to ensure your body’s recovery can mean that the pain is reduced, and you can continue to push your body to new heights.
Take time to assess where you are and don’t cause yourself unnecessary injuries.
Whenever you feel sore after your workout, get a massage and rest properly. This is a sure way to reduce muscle soreness and get ready for your next workout session.
