Dealing With Muscle Soreness

If you have followed this guide, you’re hopefully in a position where you are working out the right way, and working out frequently.

This is all well and good but it does pose its own problems. Call them occupational hazards if you wish, but a lot of people who embark on a fitnessjourney will find that their body does tend to complain a lot. Generally, this occurs through muscle soreness.

Some of you may think that you can just withstand the pain and get on with things. This might work during standard day-to-day activities, but when it comes to your next workout you might be severely restricted (and as such, unable to progress).

Bearing this in mind, we are now going to take a look at this issue in more detail and explain how you can minimize the risks of sore muscles.

But first, what is muscle soreness?

Before we get into the ins and outs of actionable tips, let’s briefly explain what muscle soreness is. This will hopefully allow you to understand the issue more easily and therefore implement methods to prevent it.

Every time you exercise to an intense level, your muscle tissue will tear. You will tend to experience the symptoms of these tears between 12 and 24 hours after your workout, and it’s certainly not uncommon for them to linger there for several days.

When we talk about symptoms, we’re referring to the likes of swelling, stiffness and a general reduction in the range of motion in your joints. Some people will also find that they lose strength in the affected areas during this period, which obviously affects their workouts even more.

How can you relieve it?

The science of building muscles means that these tissues are always going to tear; there’s little you can do about this (apart from stopping your training).

As such, the actions available to you occur after your sessions. Let’s now take a look at the best ways to relieve your sore muscles after those grueling workouts.

Wrapping things up with a cool down

All of the fitness experts talk about cooling down and suffice to say, they’re saying it for a reason. It’s all-too-common to see people in the gym ignoring a cool down but in the case of muscle soreness, this is asking for trouble.

When we talk about cooling down, we’re specifically referring to stretching today. Every time you train, your muscles are contracting and this results in the individual fibers becoming shorter.

The process of stretching means that these fibers are instead extended. The result of this is that your muscles should recover more quickly, and the soreness won’t be anywhere near as severe.

Your food makes a monumental difference

We’ll talk about plenty of physiological methods through this chapter, but arguably one of the best ways to combat muscle soreness is to simply eat the right foods after your workout.

The idea is making sure that your muscles receive enough fuel to rebuild more quickly and as such, put an end to the dreaded soreness. When we talk about nutrients, we’re really referring to the likes of proteins, carbs and fats – all which will help your muscles repair.

So, how should you tackle this? About two hours after exercise, your protein synthesis will be at its highest. In other words, this is the period where your body needs that added fuel. Your protein synthesis is also high when you sleep, meaning that you should adopt a very similar approach to eating just before bedtime.

In terms of specific foods, if you can favor anything along the fatty acid route you’ll be heading in the right direction. These are foods that reduce inflammation and can therefore reduce the risk of soreness significantly. If you can also tap into protein, one of the building blocks of muscle, it will obviously help as well.

Foam rolling isn’t a gimmick

Some people might have noted foam rollers in all of the fitness stores and considered them something of a gimmick. Well, in simple terms, they’re not.

Although they may look basic in design, foam rollers are excellent with the aim of reducing muscle soreness. This has been proven by countless scientific studies, which state that this form of massaging is incredibly effective.

The best advice is to roll each of the major muscle groups around five times, making sure you work your way up your body. If an area is feeling particularly sore, you should obviously focus more attention on it.

A massage isn’t just for comfort

The previous suggestion leads perfectly onto massaging. Whether this is foam rolling at other times of the day (in other words, not necessarily immediately after the workout) or a massage from a qualified professional – both options will suffice.

Hot and cold therapy

Let’s start with the hot-factor here. It’s a well-known fact that additional heat will increase your circulation, meaning that more blood and nutrients can progress to your muscles.

This in itself is an ideal way to reduce muscle soreness, while if you can tap into heat through something like a Jacuzzi (where there is pressure as well as heat) the benefits will just multiply.

On the flip side, there’s ice therapy. By turning to ice after a workout, you slash the risk of inflammation considerably.

As this is a principle cause behind soreness as it effectively limits your movement, this is obviously significant. When you also see that most athletes jump in an ice bath immediately after performing, it only adds to the argument.