5 ways to minimize muscle soreness while you work out.

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A night before yesterday you thought of working out, and you have achieved the little resolution you made but now the workout is making your muscles scream today. Take it as a good sign. We all secretly love sore muscles. It gives us the satisfaction that we have done serious work at the gym or maybe at your home, and you can feel it. If your muscles are crumpling, you are most likely to have “delayed onset muscle soreness” (DOMS), which is normal but the pain is sometimes not bearable.

If you are having DOMS, it means you have worked hard enough to create tiny tears in your muscle fibers. It usually happens when you have increased up to your workout intensity, frequency, or length, or when you try a new type of exercise. As your muscles heal, they’ll get bigger and stronger, it will simply increase the level of your fitness.

The DOMS usually kicks in 12 to 24 hours after a tough workout and peaks between 24 to 72 hours. The soreness will go away in a few days. In the meantime, you may feel pain in your muscles or joints. You can try these tricks to help in easing your pain.

Why do your muscles sore after a workout?

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Experts believe that delayed onset muscle soreness is a result of the small tears to your muscle fiber that happens while you are working out. The small micro-tears to our muscles cause pain and help in inflammation. In building muscles, we use the same process. When your muscle fiber builds back after these tears, they recover and come back stronger. It’s a normal part of the muscle-building and strength-building process.

But more DOMS or muscle soreness does not advise for better or quicker muscle-building or strength-building results. Getting too sore after a workout will give a negative result to your workout goals, since you may find yourself skipping a few workouts because of the pain in your muscles. The amount of pain depends on how much damage has been done and other factors like how hydrated you are and genetics, but if you are experiencing this kind of pain regularly isn’t something you should make a habit of. You need to take advice from the expert.

5 habits that will help you reduce muscle soreness.

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You want to do exercise but the thought of your muscles getting sore stopping you from achieving your good health. So, you just need to change some of your habits. Here are some ways you can include in your workout routine.

1.You must do the after movement. 

You have done your workout but now you get tired and decided to sit on the couch for a complete day. Trust me this is the worst thing you can do. You need to keep your body moving. Do some light movements even though you are feeling tired, because activity increases circulation, improving blood flow throughout the body.

We all know that increased blood flow and nutrients to the muscles help in speeding the repair process, which in return reduces DOMS. Blood carries the oxygen and nutrients to the muscle tissue, and it is believed that the faster the nutrient reaches their destination, the faster they will get to work and faster you will feel better.

2.Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate!

The second step is to drink water. Research says a correlation between dehydration and increased muscle soreness, but more research is needed to be done. But as far now a researcher has postulated that dehydration increases soreness, then hydration will help in minimizing it.

The main theory behind this is water flushes the waste material out from our body. So, when muscles break down, they release waste products and toxins which need to filter out because these products are associated with increases in soreness, and water helps in flushing them out.

3. Do some light stretching.

 Stretching can help you release the tightness in your muscles and increase the range of motion when you are sore, which can make you feel better even though it's not healing the tears in your muscles or making them repair any fast, but it’s still helping.

You must remember the keyword is “light”. Doing some light stretching can be good, but exceeding it over its limit can make the muscles even tighter than ever. Stretch until it feels pretty light, like do it for 5 to 10 seconds, and then repeat it.    

4. The amount of protein in your body should be enough.    

Protein plays an important role in helping your muscles recover from a tough workout, it is a critical nutrient for building and maintaining muscle.

It's not like that, that you should eat protein while you are working out, eating enough protein regularly is most important. If the damage is done, it can still help us to double-check that. Are we having sufficient protein? This doesn’t mean excessively high amounts of protein are needed, eat enough according to your body weight.

5. Try ice or heat to ease the pain.

The challenge of choosing heat therapy or ice therapy strictly depends upon you, it's just about what feels good. For the most part, the effect is temporary. But when you are super sore any fleeting relief as long as it's safe is worth it.

Ice can help reduce the swelling that sometimes comes along with extreme soreness. Bringing the swelling down can help reduce some pain-causing tension.

However, heat can also minimize tension and pain signals. So, if relaxing in a warm bath makes you feel better then do that! 

Takeaways

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Getting your muscle sore every time you work out is not a good sign of a healthy body. If you feel aching pain and can’t bear it, I highly recommend you to visit an expert or if you are planning to workout you must remember to follow all of these habits.

We all know that “prevention is better than cure”. So, make these 5 ways a habit of yours so next time when you work out, your muscles will be happy.