No matter how hard you try, sore muscles get the best of us. They make doing regular life hard and doing a workout even harder.
As an athlete, I am well acquainted with the world of sore muscles and what to do when your entire body is ridden with them.
Before I dive into the 5 AMAZING tips there is some information about sore muscles that I want to share with you.
First, is that sore muscles are a side effect of putting stress on our body when you exercise. That being said if you put that continuous stress on your body consistently your muscles tend to become less and less sore the day after you did the workout. Always remember your body is extremely adaptable. However, when you increase the amount of stress the soreness comes back.
I also want to iterate that sore muscles aren’t the gold standard for the best workout. You can still get great training even if you don’t feel sore afterward.
The second thing that I wanted to give information about is that sore muscles can occur a day or two after the workout. This effect is called delayed onset muscle soreness, which just means pain or stiffness felt in the muscles 24-72 hours after the completion of the workout. Not gonna lie, this can really catch you off guard if you arent aware of this bodily response to strenuous exercise. It’s something important to understand, so when you are planning your workouts you can notice, understand, and adjust your workouts accordingly to alleviate your muscles in the best way.
Now that we have gotten that out of the way! Let’s get on to the 5 Best Ways To Alleviate Sore Muscles!
Tip 1: Stretch Baby Stretch
We forget that stretching is super important. Not only for the range of motion in your muscles but also to help release the tension it has built up from your workout. Gentle stretching can help reduce the longevity of your soreness and get you back to feeling good as new in no time. Basic static stretching before and after a workout will help reduce soreness.
Tip 2: Contrast Shower / Hydro recovery
A lot of people say to “just ice”, which can help however, what has worked best for me is doing a contrast bath or shower after a hard workout. What this is is 2 minutes in cold and 1 minute in hot and you repeat that 3 times. If you want to learn more about the benefits of contrast showering, read this article to learn more. Contrast showering is a good way to get your blood flowing and repairing your tired muscles.
Tip 3: Stay Hydrated
During and before your workout you should always stay hydrated. Our body is made up of so much water. Which means lower levels can create muscle fatigue and soreness. So to stay hydrated before during and after your workout can really help with reducing the pain you may feel afterward. I found that keeping a 32-ounce water bottle on me at all times really helped when staying hydrated. If you want to learn more about how to always stay hydrated, check out this post that goes into more tips and tricks on how to stay hydrated all the time.
Tip 4: Do light exercise the day after a Hard workout
If your workout plan has you working out the day after a hard workout considers resting. As an athlete who competes at a high level, my schedule never has three hard days in a row and was constantly asked how we are doing. this is because if our muscles are very fatigued and we aren’t able to do it probably we can risk injury.
It’s always best to modify if needed. So try doing a lighter workout the next day if soreness is above average. If you need a light workout to do after a hard day. Here is a quick 10-minute leg and ab workout you can do.
Tip 5: REST IS THE BEST
At the end of the day, resting and giving your sore muscles a second to recover is the best option. Muscle soreness will always be around during this journey, so its best to give it the space it needs and work with it. Sleep is probably the best recovery and alleviating tool that I have in my arsenal. I know that after a hard day of sprinting or jumping, my body is going to really feel it. That being said, I just sleep longer on those days, take naps, or go to bed earlier. Which I promise will not be a hard thing to do especially when your body is tired already. I sometimes sleep up to 10 hours on days where I have a hard workout. I usually wake up feeling way better than a did the day before.
With all these tips I think its also good to combine some of these. Not everyone is the same and we all have different bodies. I believe that trying out all the tips on different occasions can really help when you are trying to learn what works best for YOU.
I know for me, resting combined with contrast showering and light stretches in the morning really helps me feel great enough for another day of training. I know for others it’s taking the next day completely off to recover and rejuvenate their body.
