How to Get Rid of Muscle Soreness?

We have all been there before, your first week in the gym or your first session back after some time off and you wake up the next day wondering what has happened to your body. A couple of weeks later, however, these same muscles are rarely sore, and if they are, certainly not to the dramatic levels experienced in the first week.

Why does this happen?

The soreness you experience is commonly referred to as Delay Onset Muscle Soreness or DOMS. It’s a product of inflammation caused by muscular damage during training. While this all sounds very intense don’t panic! Muscular damage is needed to build muscle and is completely normal.

DOMS should typically last anywhere from 24 to 48 hours. However it is common in your first week that no matter what you do, you’re going to experience soreness for three to five days.

Sensitivity to Soreness

The greater your level of training experience, and the more consistent you are with your training, the less sensitive you’ll be to DOMS. This is because your body adapts to the stress of exercise to the body, and becomes better at doing so the more experienced you are.

As a result, the number one tip to prevent soreness from day one is to start slow and build your training volume up. Here are 3 more tips to help you combat those DOMS:

1. Adequate Protein Intake.

When looking to start a new venture in the gym and a healthier lifestyle, one of the first things to focus on is your protein intake and make sure you are getting enough protein in your diet.

Protein’s primary role in the body is ‘growth and repair’.

This is not to say if you eat protein, your soreness will go away. It’s not as simple as that. But it does highlight our body’s need for this macronutrient to help repair muscle damage.

2. Active Recovery

Most people resort to stretching when they feel sore the day after training. Whilst it seems like the obvious thing to do that doesn’t always mean it’s the best thing to do. What works best is promoting blood flow into the areas that are sore, and staying active!

For example, if you’re particularly sore in your legs, doing some light activity (e.g. going for a walk) and creating blood flow can help ease the pain of DOMS.

Additionally, recovery tools like foam rolling/massage, Epsom salt baths and improving the quality of your sleep which is vital will all help.

3. Limit the Eccentric

If you are a complete beginner to the gym and lifting weights then you should most definitely have a personal trainer. Therefore, this tip is more aimed at your personal trainer/coach as opposed to you but can also be really handy to know.

The greatest amount of muscle damage comes from the eccentric portion of the exercises (Downwards phase).

Whilst you cant eliminate the eccentric portion of an exercise altogether what you can do is pick exercises that create less stress in the eccentric portion.

For example. Exercises loading the muscle through an extremely stretched position, like a Romanian deadlift, will create more soreness in the hamstrings than a machine leg curl.

Ultimately, if you build your work capacity slowly, and train regularly, your soreness from workouts will be dramatically reduced but in the meantime give some of these points a go and hopefully they can help you 

Stay Healthy, Stay Happy.