How to Reduce Muscle Soreness After a Workout

Muscle soreness can sometimes be annoying

Muscle soreness is common among people who exercise. If you are reading this, odds are you don't like muscle soreness after your workouts. So, what causes muscle soreness and what can you do to experience less of it? Here you will find some answers.

Difficulty:

Moderate

Instructions

1. Muscle soreness occurs AFTER a workout. It is caused by tiny tears in our muscles that are caused by a demanding workout (too much weight for the muscle). Inflammation follows these tears and pain proceeds. What can you do to alleviate muscle soreness? Here are some suggestions:

2. Yes, your body does fix itself

   REPAIR

   Something you can do is help your body repair the tears faster than it would have otherwise. Some things you can do are: sleep more, stop working out until pain ceases, and have a proper workout nutrition. For a more detailed explanation on how you should eat when working out check the article "How to eat to maximize weightlifting results" on the resources section.

3. Stretching before your workouts will not help with muscle soreness

   STRETCHING

   It used to be believed by many that stretching before exercising was a good way to reduce soreness. However, now that we know the cause of the problem this solution seems pointless. As you would expect, scientific studies have shown that stretching before exercising does not help at all to reduce or prevent muscle soreness.

4. Massages do help with muscle soreness

   MASSAGE

   Massaging has been scientifically proven to prevent a great deal of soreness! Studies have shown that massaging shortly after a workout (30 min-1 hour) and then again a few hours later can lessen future pain. Why does this work? It is probably because massaging moves fluids out of the injured tiny tears. This reduces inflammation.

5. Anti-inflammatory substances help with muscle soreness

   ANTIINFLAMMATORIES

   If inflammation is greatly responsible for muscle soreness then it makes sense to think anti-inflammatory substances can help alleviate this pain right? Does science support this? Yes, studies have been done with ibuprofen (an anti-inflammatory) and the conclusion was that they do help greatly. If your pain is strong then you should consider these. Some foods such as celery have anti-inflammatory effects.

Tips & Warnings

• Do not confuse an official "muscle tear" with muscle soreness. One is a serious injury, the other is not.

• Do not overdose on anything!

Resources

• How to Eat To Maximize Weight Lifting Results
• How to Build Muscle Faster
• How to Get Prescription Medicines Without a Prescription
• How to Save Money On Clothes Without Looking Like You Did
• How to Have Stronger Bones
• How to Get Enough Calcium Without Dairy
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• How to Avoid a Cell Phone´s Electromagnetic Radiation
• How to Reduce Muscle Cramps