Active5 ways to ease muscle soreness after working outPrevent DOMS and speed up muscle recovery with these simple tipsWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Active5 ways to ease muscle soreness after working outPrevent DOMS and speed up muscle recovery with these simple tipsWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Prevent DOMS and speed up muscle recovery with these simple tips
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Getty)
(Image credit: Getty)
Waking up the day after your amazing workout session and experiencing sore, aching muscles just isn’t pleasant. When it’s really bad, it can make you feel like you’re 30 years older (aching back anyone?). Butdelayed onset muscle sorenessis normal, especially if you’ve had a pretty intense session, or haven’t worked out in a while. While you can’t magically make it disappear, there are a few things you can do to make it a little less painful and hopefully speed up your recovery time.
You may have heard of the RICE method when it comes to DOMS —rest, ice, compression and elevation. However, there are some additional things that you can do before and after your workout, as well as dietary changes, that can all contribute towards making your muscle soreness a little more manageable. Keen to know what they are? Keep reading.
1. Do a proper warm up
It may be obvious, but so many of us are still guilty of not prioritising getting our joints and muscles activated before working out. TheNational Library of Medicinesays: “Performing warm-ups increases muscle temperature and blood flow, which contributes to improved exercise performance and reduced risk of injuries to muscles and tendons.” Whileone studyfound that performing a warm-up before exercise can reduce DOMS 48 hours after exercising. Moral of the story: do you warm-ups people! If you struggle with knowing what to do, try thisfive-move running warm up. FYI don’t be put off that it’s for running, the point is it will get you moving, your heart rate up and blood pumping.
2. Stay hydrated
Not only does water help flush the toxins out of your body, but it prevents us from becoming dehydrated, whichone studyfound can make our tolerance to pain worse. TheNHSsays we should be drinking six to eight glasses of water per day. The easiest way to get this in is to start in the morning. Also, acool gym water bottlealways makes you motivated to drink more.
3. Keep moving
At T3 we’re always banging on about the importance of mobility exercises and keeping mobile to help prevent aches and pains, but it really is important. We’re not saying go out and do a 5K run, but some light activity, like getting a walk in, doing some swimming or even yoga can all help with blood and oxygen flow to your muscles, which will help remove toxins from the body and, as a result, speed up recovery time. Try theseseven low-impact exercisesto keep you moving.
4. Eat nutritious foods
The right nutrition can go a long way when it comes to muscle recovery. There’s still mixed research around whether whey protein is beneficial to muscle soreness – withsome studiessaying it helps with muscle recovery, but not DOMS – whileothers claimit doesn’t help at all. Nevertheless, hitting your daily protein intake can help with muscle growth, therefore we definitely recommend including it in your diet. Buying aprotein powderso that you can make a shake is the easiest way to do this.
5. Massage
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