Did you ever feel like your muscles scream a day after you did an intense workout? If so, you might be experiencing delayed muscle soreness (DOMS), and it means you worked hard enough to create tiny tears in your muscle fibers.
This post-workout side effect is definitely not the most pleasant one. But the good thing is, there are many ways and techniques you can do to reduce or even avoid post-workout muscle soreness.
Why Our Muscles Get Sore After Workouts
According to the American College of Sports Medicine, post-workout muscle soreness—also referred to as delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS)—signals that you caused damage to your muscle tissue. When this damage, or micro-tearing, happens, your body initiates the repair process by triggering inflammation at the injured site.
Fluid accumulates in the muscles, putting extra pressure on the damaged areas, leading to that familiar sensation of tightness and pain that typically begins to develop 12 to 24 hours after your workout.
Every time you exercise, you will create damage or tear your muscle. However, certain types of workouts will leave you with more muscle damage and soreness. In particular, any workout that’s new to you, more intense than usual, or involves a lot of eccentric movements will likely cause more damage and soreness than other types of workouts.
Are Sore Muscles After a Workout Really a Good Sign?
Torn muscles might sound bad to you. But to some degree, muscle inflammation can be an important sign for muscle growth and repair. If you help your muscles recover from the damage, they’ll likely grow back bigger and stronger.
But still, you would probably want the soreness to go away so you can get back to moving and living pain-free. It’s also important to keep in mind that you don’t have to be sore after a workout in order for it to be effective.
Things You Can Do to Ease Post-Workout Muscle Soreness
Your muscles need time to heal, so there aren’t any instant solutions for this. However, there are some strategies you can use to ease soreness and aid recovery.
Your muscles need time to heal, so there aren’t any instant solutions for this. However, there are some strategies you can use to ease soreness and aid recovery.
1. Warm Up Before You Exercise
An important part of protecting your muscles is making sure they're primed for use before you challenge them. Therefore, it’s important for you to take several minutes of warm-up before every workout, especially if the workout is more intense than usual.
2. Keep Your Body Hydrated
Keeping your body hydrated is an important aspect of muscle recovery. Water keeps the fluids moving through your system, which eases inflammation, flushes out waste products, and delivers nutrients to your muscles.
3. Get Enough Sleep
Sleep is also one of the most important components of exercise recovery.
According to a review in Sports Medicine, Non–Rapid Eye Movement (NREM) sleep increases protein synthesis (the creation of new proteins), which is needed to repair damaged muscles. So, aim to score at least seven hours of sleep after you perform a heavy workout session.
4. Do Light Exercise the Day After a Tough Workout
This might sound counterintuitive but getting some gentle movement through activities like restorative yoga, walking, swimming, or even light resistance training, might help to ease your post-workout muscle soreness.
The reason is that performing a light exercise will get the blood moving to the sore muscles to deliver oxygen and nutrients needed for repair.
5. Apply Heat
If your muscles still ache after 48 hours, try heat. Applying heat can stimulate blood flow to your muscles to ease tightness and help them feel better. You can try a warm towel or heating pad. But be careful and avoid direct contact with any heating device.
6. Get A Massage
When your muscles are sore, a gentle massage is best. Getting a massage after a workout can relieve muscle tension, boost blood flow to tense the area, and increase the range of motion in your joints. Not to mention It’s a great mood-lifter too!
_____
If you are looking to make progress in the gym, you need to make sure that you are taking the necessary steps to recover and massage will make a huge difference. At Ubud Muay Thai, we offer massage treatment to help you treat your muscle soreness so that you can get back to your training right away! Our Therapeutic Massage is suitable for those of you who have been engaged in highly physical activities such as moving to a new place, traveling, performing an intense workout, or for you who simply want to relax and enjoy the day!
Book your massage treatment today by contacting our Whatsapp!