If you’ve been working out hard, you may have experienced delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS), which is a terrible muscle pain that occurs in the days following a strenuous workout. While muscle aches are often unavoidable due to pushing your body and becoming more substantial, you can do some things to help. Utilize these ideas to help you recover faster from muscle injuries so you can continue working toward your health and fitness goals!
How to Accelerate Muscle Recovery
The community frequently asks sweat trainers how to ease painful muscles after a workout. Here are some tried-and-true techniques to help you get back to training sooner:
Hydrate
Water is necessary for overall health and post-workout recovery, including muscle restoration. Aim for two liters of water daily, or more if you do vigorous activities, have increased sweat production, or live in a hot area. Is water sufficient if you constantly work up a sweat? You should drink as much water as you sweat out and use enough electrolytes to compensate for your loss. Electrolytes are minerals in most diets, including magnesium, potassium, calcium, and salt. These minerals are essential for your neurological system and are depleted during muscle contraction.
If you are eating a healthy diet full of fruits and vegetables, you can get enough electrolytes to help your muscles heal. After your workout, drink a glass of milk, coconut water, or a fruit smoothie to help restore electrolytes in your blood and improve recovery.
Snack After Workout
Have a post-workout snack. After working out, eating a snack with carbs and protein can help your muscles recover by giving them the nutrients they need to heal. In the first 60–90 minutes after exercise, the body is most effective at replacing carbs and promoting muscle repair and growth. Although this process will continue for another 12 to 24 hours, maximizing your recovery in the first 90 minutes is a good suggestion. There are numerous possibilities for quick, healthy snacks to replenish your energy levels: you could drink a smoothie, eat some fruit with yogurt, have peanut butter or eggs with toast, or have a protein powder shake if you are pressed for time and won’t be able to eat for a while.
If you adopt a plant-based diet, consume lots of high-protein foods during the day, such as nuts, tofu, quinoa, and beans, to provide your muscles with the necessary nutrients for repair.
Are you still hungry after dinner? A high-protein snack in the evening can help to fill the void and aid in muscle restoration overnight.
Use a workout supplement.
While we always recommend eating whole foods, some trainers and athletes will add supplements with branch-chain amino acids (BCAAs). Women who take BCAAs before working out may have less post-workout discomfort and faster muscle repair. Even though BCAAs are in whole foods like animal protein, eggs, tofu, beans, and dairy products, taking supplements may not noticeably affect people who already eat a healthy diet with enough protein.
Warm up before beginning resistance exercise.
Taking the time to do an efficient warm-up may help to prevent muscular discomfort and injury risk. Warming up correctly is especially vital before strenuous workouts and moves like deadlifts and pull-ups. Ensure your warm-up includes dynamic stretching to wake up the muscles you’ll use; this will help you avoid overstretching, tension, or injury during your workout.
Make time to relax.
The Mayo Clinic says that you should cool down slowly after your workout to let your heart rate and blood pressure recover. If you just finished a hard workout or HIIT session that got your heart rate up, walking on the treadmill for 5–10 minutes might help your body cool down.
Do you have difficulty sleeping? Once your heart rate has calmed, static stretching (holding a stretch posture) can help you improve your range of motion and avoid feeling so tight the next day. A stretching session before bedtime may also aid in your sleep.
Stretching and foam rolling
According to a 2019 study evaluating the impact of foam rolling on performance and recovery, foam rolling before and after an exercise can aid in increasing performance. In your warm-up, foam rolling, stretching, and dynamic stretching can help you become more flexible and get the most out of your workout. Tight hips are a common problem, so stretching and foam rolling can help relieve pain, improve flexibility, and aid muscle repair.
Raise your legs.
Spending most of your time sitting, standing, lying down, walking, or sprinting with your legs down is expected.
Elevating your legs or performing the “legs-up-the-wall” yoga pose can aid blood flow, edema, and fluid circulation. Doing some relaxing yoga positions may also help in circulation improvement.
Take a relaxing bath.
Workouts that are too difficult can cause micro-tears in your muscles, resulting in swelling, inflammation, and pain as your muscles strengthen and adapt to the workload. If you’re still hurting one or two days after your workout, a cool bath or shower will help reduce inflammation and aid recovery. Some sportsmen feel that cryotherapy, which involves exposing the body to cold or near-freezing temperatures, can assist in relieving muscle pain. In a 2017 review, researchers found that whole-body cryotherapy (WBC) might speed up recovery from muscle damage. Improvements in muscle pain and recovery were more consistent after multiple exposures.
Suppose you have severe discomfort or soreness that lasts more than five days or want to attempt a different treatment. In that case, you should always consult a healthcare expert.
Muscle Rehabilitation Requires Rest
It would benefit you most if you did not skip rest days. Putting your rest days first and getting enough sleep will help your muscles heal faster and make you feel refreshed and ready for your next activity. You should have at least one day of complete rest in your schedule, rather than an active recovery day, every 7–10 days with any strenuous physical activity to allow your body to heal and adapt. Take more rest if you feel you need it. Your body is the expert!
Continue to move
Mild exercise between workouts will keep your blood moving through your body, giving your muscles the nutrients they need to heal and helping your body eliminate waste.
A 2018 review of the research found that the symptoms of delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS) were lessened by active recovery done within the first few days after a hard workout.
You may climb the stairs, stretch, or try to meet your daily step goal.
Put on compression tights.
According to a 2019 study on the benefits of compression garments on recovery, compression tights significantly influence performance. Researchers recommend that athletes wear compression tights immediately after intensive activity.
Compression gear may also aid in minimizing inflammation, swelling, and muscle discomfort.
The fabric’s tightness can encourage blood flow through deeper blood vessels rather than those on the surface, which may help with waste clearance and nutrient delivery to muscle fibers.
Minimize your stress.
Did you realize your emotional and mental health might impact your muscle recovery?
When you’re stressed, your body is focused on responding to the stress and has less capacity to prioritize muscle repair. In 2014, researchers examined how long-term mental stress affects muscle recovery, how tired you feel, how energetic you think you are, and how sore your muscles are after four days of intense resistance training. Higher stress levels were linked to slower healing, while lower stress levels were related to faster recovery. Stress can also affect everything from sleep to food habits, hormones, and overall well-being. These factors can impact your immunological response, which is critical for muscle regeneration. Various internal and external causes influence stress levels. Consult a healthcare practitioner if they need to be corrected daily. If you’re stressed, try strategies like mindfulness and meditation, yoga, or making time for pastimes you enjoy.
Use the gradual overload principle.
Your exercise regimen should not leave you sore for days after each workout. Each exercise in a resistance training program should get progressively more complex over time. Still, it would help if you never went beyond your limits.
Using the gradual overload method, you will keep your body to the test without pushing it too far; this entails regularly changing your workout amount, intensity, density, and frequency. Remember that just because your muscles aren’t hurting doesn’t mean you’re not working hard or making progress!
Pay attention to your body.
Some regions of your body may feel tighter during or after a workout. Your lifestyle, habits, anatomy, and prior injuries can contribute to these imbalances.
For example, if you’re right or left-handed, one side will typically be stronger than the other, and the weaker side may feel tighter. You could have tight shoulders from working at a computer all day or a soft knee from an old running injury!
After your workout, relax and focus on how your body feels; then, you can adapt your cooldown to your body’s requirements. Spend more time stretching one tight place and notice how it feels throughout your next workout.
Listening to your body also entails recognizing when to rest or lessen the intensity of your workouts, even if your training program or fitness watch instructs you to continue!
While technology can help you measure your performance and weariness, you should always appreciate the importance of self-monitoring. Only you know how you genuinely feel regarding fatigue, discomfort, and workout enjoyment. To avoid burnout or overtraining, be aware of warning signals such as lack of sleep, weariness, reduced immunity, or persistent achy muscles.