If there’s one thing to be sure of, being sore for days on end after an exercise session is not enjoyable for anyone! While muscle soreness can be a great marker of a successful workout, a quicker recovery is better than one that drags out. With so many great ways to improve muscle recovery, keep reading as we discuss the best natural ways for how to move away from soreness.
What is DOMS?
The term “DOMS” stands for Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness and refers to the feeling of painful, sore and aching muscles after exercise. This muscle soreness peaks at anywhere from 24-72 hours after exercise and is considered a type 1 muscle strain injury (Cheung et al. 2003).
What do sore muscles mean?
During strenuous exercise, the muscle and connective tissue get damaged creating tiny microtears. These microtears trigger inflammatory responses resulting in muscle soreness from the inflammatory processes and damage.
Injury or grow faster?
While words like microtears, damage and inflammatory processes lead to the thought of injury; this isn’t the case. Muscles need these microtears in order to grow and develop, this is also known as hypertrophy. Once exercise is performed and microtears occur in the muscle fibres, the body sends nutrients such as protein and amino acids as well as blood to the area to help it heal. Over time, this results in the formation of accumulated muscle mass (Nakama et al. 2007).
How to reduce soreness
With there being a new health fad every week that promises to increase recovery and feeling well it can be overwhelming with the amount of options available. While you can try out all the new trends and make a decision for yourself, nothing beats keeping it simple with the tried and tested methods. Here are a few ways to increase your recovery and move away from soreness a little quicker.
- Warming up, cooling down and stretching before and after your workout is a great way to look after your joints, ligaments and muscles. Studies have shown it to have a slight improvement on DOMS and also reduce the risk of injury from exercise (Anderson, 2005).
- Eating an anti-inflammatory and protein rich diet is extremely beneficial for reducing muscle soreness and increasing the recovery time. Super foods with high anti-inflammatory properties such as ginseng, fish, avocado, flaxseeds, extra virgin olive oil, chia seeds, ginger and turmeric are great ways to reduce inflammation quicker. Protein rich foods such as meat, eggs, legumes, lentils, tofu and green leafy vegetables help to feed the muscles the amino acids that they use as building blocks to recover, heal and grow. (Pasiakos et al. 2014)
- Deep tissue massage is a great activity to add into your recovery schedule, not only does it reduce DOMS quicker but it also improves performance, reduces stress, muscle tension and breaks up scar tissue. It relieves the build up of knots and tension by applying heavy pressure to the muscles and deep tissues.
- Having regular saunas and ice baths are great practises for relieving sore muscles. The heat from the sauna not only allows the muscles to relax but also increases blood circulation which enhances carrying the oxygen-rich blood to the oxygen-depleted muscle. Ice baths constrict blood vessels which helps to relieve swelling and soreness by slowing down blood flow.
Moving on
Whether you move a lot or a little, recovery techniques can be beneficial for everyone and are a great form of self care. Remember you only have one body, so make sure you treat it kindly so it can keep you moving through life.
References
Andersen J. C. (2005). Stretching before and after exercise: effect on muscle soreness and injury risk. Journal of athletic training, 40(3), 218–220.
Cheung, K., Hume, P., & Maxwell, L. (2003). Delayed onset muscle soreness : treatment strategies and performance factors. Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.), 33(2), 145–164. https://doi.org/10.2165/00007256-200333020-00005
Nakama, L. H., King, K. B., Abrahamsson, S., & Rempel, D. M. (2007). Effect of repetition rate on the formation of microtears in tendon in an in vivo cyclical loading model. Journal of orthopaedic research : official publication of the Orthopaedic Research Society, 25(9), 1176–1184. https://doi.org/10.1002/jor.20408
Pasiakos, S. M., Lieberman, H. R., & McLellan, T. M. (2014). Effects of protein supplements on muscle damage, soreness and recovery of muscle function and physical performance: a systematic review. Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.), 44(5), 655–670. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-013-0137-7