Muscle soreness: 5 ways to deal with it

An active life is essential. It builds strong muscles and bones, as well as benefiting the lungs and heart. However, working out may cause muscle soreness and pain. So, what to do if that happens? Find five tips below!

What causes muscle soreness?

This reaction is a common occurrence if you increase the intensity or try a new exercise. The soreness can also be due to straining your muscles, using new ones, or getting tears in the muscle fibers.

Muscle soreness is an indication that your muscles are responding to sudden growth, workouts, and getting stronger. Although sore muscles are natural, prolonged pain may mean a more severe injury.

These tips and tricks can help you deal with the pain without derailing your results:

1. Warm-up

Warming up revives your cardiovascular system by improving blood flow to the muscles. It also helps you reduce muscle pain and soreness and lessen the risk of an injury.

Ensure you warm-up before you start working out. The first step is focusing on large muscle groups like hamstrings.

Start the movement and activity patterns of your exercise, but at a low pace. This slower paced-exercising is known as a dynamic warm-up.

A warm-up can be a brisk walk or a run of about 10 minutes. Another example is five minutes of gentle swimming.

2. Stay within your limits

Working out can be enthralling, even in wintertime. It also has many benefits for the mind, body, and soul.

However, you should have your limits. Whether you’re a newbie or experienced in working out and in good shape, everyone has limits!

Personal trainers may try to push you an extra mile. You may also try to apply yourself to attain goals. As important as setting your fitness goal, don’t push yourself beyond what you can handle.

The key is to stay in a safe heart rate zone. Take rest days too or you risk breaking down muscle fibers.

Ensure you make slow but sure progress. Over time you can increase the intensity and amount of weight you lift. If you enhance it too soon, you may get an injury and the resulting muscle pain, unfortunately.

3. Muscle soreness? Get help

Muscle pain and aches cause a lot of discomforts. When the pain persists, seek help from a professional.

You may consider massage therapy from a qualified chiropractor. Your muscle pain and soreness could be due to musculoskeletal alignment.

4. Use proper technique

When it comes to exercise, quality is more important than quantity. It’s not about how much weight you lift but how you lift it. Even experienced ones need the right form for great continuous results.

Perfect form boosts performance, reduces muscle soreness, and conserves energy. Poor mechanics places undue emphasis on ligaments, muscles, and tendons leading to sprains.

5. Drink water 

Drinking water helps in controlling your body temperature, transporting nutrients, and loosening your joints. On the other hand, not getting enough H2O can have big consequences.

Dehydration can lead to muscle cramps, dizziness, fatigue, and more severe problems. Drinking water speeds up recovery time and eradicates feelings of soreness.

Wrapping up

Muscle soreness causes discomfort. It prevents you from being in your best form and derails progress. Use the five techniques above to soothe your pain.