When you first start exercising, take a break for a while, or try new exercises, you may experience muscle pain for a few days.
Although this is natural and common, there are various precautions you can take to prevent muscle pain and reduce its effects.
Before you take action to prevent muscle pain from putting you off exercise and preventing you from doing your daily activities, why not take a look at why and how muscle pain occurs? In this article, we have compiled everything you need to know about muscle pain after exercise!
What Causes Muscle Soreness After Exercise?
When you start a new exercise routine or change your routine; increase the duration and intensity of your regular exercise movements; or start exercising again after a break, delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) may occur.
This condition, also known as soreness among the public, occurs as a result of microscopic damage to the muscle fibers after physical activity.
DOMS can affect not only amateur athletes but also those who have been doing sports professionally for a long time. Don’t worry, your muscles get used to physical activity over time, in other words, pain may decrease and disappear over time.
Among the causes of muscle pain after exercise, there is also muscle fatigue other than DOMS. The factor that plays a role in muscle fatigue, which should not be confused with DOMS, is lactic acid.
The accumulation of lactic acid and the weakening of energy stores can cause a feeling of discomfort that lasts for 1-2 hours or longer.
We can list the factors that can cause muscle pain and fatigue as follows:
- New to sports: These pains may last for 2-3 days on average as the body is still young, but they will decrease as you continue exercising.
- Adding new movements or weights to your training program: Pain may occur because the muscles are loaded more than they are used to.
- Ignoring stretching and cooling down exercises: Dynamic stretching exercises and cooling down exercises after exercise are necessary to prepare the muscles for physical activity. Failure to do so may result in muscle damage.
- Not paying attention to breathing during exercise: Not paying attention to points specific to each movement, such as when to inhale and exhale, can cause muscle pain.
What You Can Do to Prevent Muscle Soreness After Exercise
It is possible to prevent problems such as post-exercise leg pain or post-exercise abdominal pain and reduce the pain afterwards with what you do before and during exercise. Let’s see what you can do together:
- One of the most effective precautions you can take to avoid muscle pain after exercise is to start your new exercise routine gradually,
- Include dynamic stretching exercises that will increase your heart rate, increase your flexibility and improve blood flow in your program before exercise.
- Consuming beverages containing caffeine, such as a cup of coffee, before starting sports,
- Drinking plenty of water before, during and after physical activity,
- You can reduce your chances of experiencing post-workout muscle soreness in many ways, such as adding cool-down exercises to your routine to prevent lactic acid buildup, trying aerobic movements and a slow-paced walk.
What is Good for Post-Exercise Muscle Soreness?
Post-workout muscle pain; DOMS, or muscle fatigue can affect your daily activities when you experience it, causing even the simplest physical activities to be painful. When faced with such situations, the suggestions we will mention below can help relieve muscle pain. If you experience muscle pain that does not go away for a week or more, you should consult a specialist doctor.
- The first solution to muscle pain is to let your body rest. You should take a break from intense workouts for a few days and continue gradually.
- You can reduce muscle pain by applying heat to areas that are likely to be sore immediately after exercise. For example, you can keep the area warm with warm towels or heating bands, or you can relax your whole body by taking a warm shower.
- After hot application, you can relax your muscles and joints with cold therapy. You can apply cold with products such as ice packs, cold gel compresses, etc. Let us also remind you that you should not apply ice directly to your skin.
- Another one of the most beneficial methods to relieve muscle pain is massage. Massage can reduce DOMS pain and improve muscle performance. Who wouldn’t want to relax with a massage that will regulate blood flow and relieve muscle tension?
- Muscle relaxant creams and medications can also help you relax, but you should only use such methods after getting approval from a doctor.
- There are studies showing that consuming anti-inflammatory foods such as pineapple, ginger, and cherries have a positive effect on muscle pain. You can try adding these to your diet.
You may wonder, “Can you exercise when you have muscle pain?” However, you can help your muscle pain go away and ease more quickly by doing exercises that will not tire your muscles too much.
You can apply our suggestions about muscle pain to avoid discomfort after sports. One of the essentials of a comfortable and efficient workout is to use the right sports equipment. You can find everything you need in many branches of sports from running to swimming at Yalı Spor . Visit Yalı Spor now and start enjoying sports with the right equipment!
