An intense weight-training session or a prolonged cardio workout makes a person to feel muscle soreness, exhaustion and even nausea. After waking up next day of exercise, you would feel intense muscle soreness which is called delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). But you can avoid or reduce this feeling by taking few preventive measures. The following ten steps before and after the gym will help you for this purpose.
Speedy Recovery: 10 Ways to Ease Sore Muscles
- Before work out, drinking a cup of caffeinated tea of coffee increases the strength and endurance of muscles which in turn reduces the chances of muscle soreness.
- Eating a low-fat, low-protein and high carb pre-workout snack will help to strengthen muscles.
- Before strenuous exercise, it’s important to warm up completely through dynamic stretching and some cardio in order to prepare muscles for workout.
- There should not be long breaks during exercise. Keep on moving will move fresh blood which is important for muscle repair.
- Drink water after every 15 minutes during exercise in order to stay hydrated.
- Continuous sweating can cause palpitation, muscle contractions etc. It is important to replace the electrolytes while sweating through electrolyte-rich foods or sports drinks that will reduce the problems caused by excess sweating.
- You can increase blood flow to your muscles after exercise through stretching and using a foam roller.
- A post-workout snack is important to eat soon after a workout. This snack helps to restore lost energy during workout and it has 4:1 ratio of carbs to protein. You can reduce soreness by drinking chocolate milk or protein snack with tart cherry juice after exercise.
- For those areas that remain sore, you can use sports massage in order to increase blood circulation in these body parts.
- Inflammation of muscles can also be reduced by taking a cold shower after workout. Apart from that, an ice bath can reduce muscle soreness by 20 percent.
