Coming back home from the gym with sore muscles can happen after you try new exercises or you push yourself extra hard. But sore muscles actually pose a health hazard and you need to recover from them as soon as possible. That’s why Lena is here today with five tips for gym muscle soreness recovery, including food for muscle recovery soreness.
What’s causing your sore muscles?
Before diving into the five suggestions, it’s useful to know that sore muscles are actually micro-tears in muscle tissue resulting in delayed muscle soreness. That can develop almost a full day after the workout and then linger for two or three days. To combat the most common symptoms, you need to do your recovery right and the following 5 tips will help you achieve this:
5 tips for muscle soreness recovery
1. Stretch before and after practice
Every good athlete, including bodybuilders, can tell about the importance of stretching before and after practice. Basically, when you train your muscle fibers get shorter, so extending them before and after practice helps them become more mobile. In turn, it means that they are less injury-prone and can recover better than before if stretched properly.
A typical pre-work stretching session lasts around 10 minutes, but most people forget to apply the same technique after practice. This absense leaves the muscle short, thus increasing the detrimental effects soreness has and prolonging gym muscle soreness recovery.
2. Apply ice
Apart from contacting, your muscles’ temperature increases and they become inflamed. This occurrence is perfectly normal since inflammation is nature’s defense mechanism that prevents you from further injuring yourself.
However, you can thwart this defense mechanism by placing some ice on the sore spot immediately after the training session is over. Doing so will significantly speed up the healing process without any detrimental effects if you use the correct amount of ice. The last thing you need is frostbite to your already overstrained muscles.
3. Massage for muscle soreness recovery
Like with every other problem in life, seeking professional help isn’t a bad idea. When it comes to post-exercise recovery, massaging the sore spots is the right way to go.
Admittedly, you can do so on your own by applying pressure to the problem area or areas but the fact remains that you are not a physiotherapist. It is up to professionals like Movement 101 to advise you on the right type of massage and then provide it.
In fact, this recovery method is so soothing to your body that you will likely soon start having massages regularly regardless of the level of muscle soreness.
4. Food for muscle recovery soreness
As I said earlier, sore muscles are the direct result of muscle damage. So, muscle needs material to “rebuild” themselves. This means changing what you eat in the days immediately after the visit to the gym.
Basically, you have enough carbohydrates, healthy proteins, and fats that will help your muscles repair the damage caused to them much quicker. As the tissue around the sore spots regenerate, the pain you feel will lower quickly.
If you take a professional approach to exercise, some protein supplementation in the form of amino acids is another consideration. Consuming the right supplements and food for muscle recovery soreness can be very helpful.
5. Don’t stop now!
The previous four tips are equally effective, but if you ask people around the gym for advice on gym muscle soreness recovery, they’ll probably tell you to keep exercising. Of course, you will not be able to maintain the previous level of intensity. But, you can stay physically active with some light physical activities.
A few examples are yoga, jogging, or cycling. Doing active recovery will send signals to your muscles that they are still needed and should recover ASAP.
Muscle soreness recovery conclusions
The five tips above are only some of the ideas on how you can recover fast after a training session that leaves you with sore muscles. If you find the pain you are experiencing is excruciating, pain medication can help, just don’t make this a habit or take more than recommended. All of the methods on the list here are actually natural methods of muscle soreness recovery.
About today’s writer
Lena Hemsworth is a lifestyle blogger, foodie, and lover of a good book. She’s also a strong believer in the written word and positive thoughts.
Great guest post with some useful tips. I think every little helps with muscle soreness. Interesting about ice though as that’s usually what’s recommended, yet heat packs for general muscle aches & pains can also be good (what I tend to use as I’m cold all the time so I can’t stand the thought of ice!) xx
feeling less sore now!
fyi this page took
a long time to load for me :-)
I do to.. but in a healthy, not harming way… :D
It might sound a bit off, that more workouts can relive sore muscles but its true. You just need a different kind.
Yoga would be a great choice.
Your body is like a car. You have to take great care of it or it will leave you on the side of the road. Nice write up as usual.
And we have to remember to refuel the car when we feel burnt out ;)
Awesome information
I love DOMS like no one else. 😂😂😂
Muscle pain is very frequent today. And if the exercises relieve them, nothing better than replacing the pills.
fantastic tips….nice post…thanks for share