5 Ways to Deal With Muscle Soreness After Exercise

You've crushed that workout and now you're feeling that little bit of post workout soreness. It's normal to have a bit of muscle soreness after a workout. Experts believe that muscle soreness stems from small micro tears in the muscles. Muscle pain normally starts around 12 hours after the workout and peaks on the second day. This is the same process used to build your muscles. Your muscle fibers build themselves back from these tears and come back stronger.

While a bit of soreness makes you feel like you've had a great workout, here are a few things you can do to ease your muscle soreness post workout.

1. Hydrate!

If you've ever done a long run without any water you'll know that this adds to your muscle soreness. Dehydration can increase your muscle soreness so making sure you hydrate during and after your workout can help with muscle soreness. 

2. Do a bit of light movement

The best thing you can do when those muscles are aching is to get them moving. The worst thing is to sit on the couch. Moving will help with your circulation in your body. Go for a walk or a bike ride and loosen up the muscles or do some very light (emphasis on the very light) strength training. All of this will help with your blood flow and start loosening up those muscles.

3. Do some light stretching

We're firm believers in stretching after a workout. It's really important not to overstretch your muscles. So again emphasis on the light stretching. Only lean into the stretch until it feels tight but not unbearable and hold the stretch for at least 20-30 seconds. If even that is painful then skip it until it feels like you can stretch comfortably again.

4. Foam roll after your workout

 Foam rollers help to to move the fluids that accumulate in the muscle after exercise. Like doing a bit of light movement, foam rolling helps with your circulation which helps gets oxygen to the sore area which then in turn helps reduce the swelling and inflammation. If you're new to foam rolling, look for a softer foam roller to begin with as firmer rollers apply more pressure and can be a bit intense if you're not used to them.

5. Get a good nights sleep 

 Sleep is one of the most important components to recovery. Non–rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, for example, increases protein synthesis (the creation of new proteins), which is needed to repair damaged muscles, according to a review published in October 2014 in Sports Medicine. You need to aim for at least 7 hours of sleep to aid in the healing process.