How To Reduce Muscle Soreness From Working Out

How To Reduce Muscle Soreness From Working Out

Some people love it when they feel sore after a workout, because they know it’s a sign they had a great workout. Others look for how to reduce muscle soreness because they find they’re a little too sore the day (or days) after a solid workout.

If you’re wondering how to reduce muscle soreness from working out, you’re not alone. It’s normal to get quite sore, especially if you don’t work out often enough.

After a solid leg day at the gym, you might find your glutes or hamstrings are sore. Perhaps it hurts to sit down, or your legs feel sore while you’re walking. After a successful arm day weightlifting with your personal trainer, you might find it difficult to lift your arms over your head to reach something, or carry groceries the next day. This is normal.

Small micro-tears in your muscle fibres from working out are normal, and this will often cause some discomfort or soreness.

It’s worth noting that if you’re too sore, your whole exercise routine for the week could be thrown off, as you’ll need more rest days than planned. Your goal should be to learn how to reduce muscle soreness, so that you can keep exercising regularly, and stay on track with your fitness goals.

Muscle soreness from exercise generally only lasts about 72 hours, so if the same spot is still very painful after that, call your doctor as it could be a sprain or torn muscle.

There are steps you can take to master how to reduce muscle soreness so that feeling overly sore doesn’t get in the way of your fitness consistency.

1. Work Out Consistently 

Sometimes, when people feel very uncomfortable and sore the day after a workout, it’s a sign that they don’t work out often enough. If you don’t train often, the soreness will likely be quite bad. The best way to master how to reduce muscle soreness is to workout regularly. Furthermore, low-impact exercises such as cycling and swimming are great for flushing out the lactic acid and recovering faster with less soreness.

2. Learn Proper Form
You can get injured or feel intensely sore if you perform exercises without proper form. This is why it’s so important to hire a personal trainer who can guide you and ensure you are executing your exercises with proper form.

Weightlifting is an example of a type of exercise that can leave you quite sore if your form was incorrect while you were doing it. Personal trainers help guide you while you perform deadlifts, bench press, and other weightlifting exercises. In fact, having someone ensure your form is correct is one of the top benefits of hiring a personal trainer.

3. Warm Up, Stretch, and Cool Down

Warming up before a workout is vital when it comes to how to reduce muscle soreness and reduce your risk of injury. Warming up is the best way to prevent injuries and improve your performance. It helps your body’s core temperature heat up and transition into exercise mode. You’re prepping your muscles for exercise by warming them up. Warming up also improves blood circulation and improves range of motion.

Your warm-up only has to be about 5 – 10 minutes long, and you should warm up the muscles you plan on using. For example, do lots of glute bridges and good mornings as a warm up on a leg day where you’ll be working your glutes and doing deadlifts. For an extra warm-up, power walk or jog to the gym instead of driving.

Part of your warm-up is stretching. Stretching properly before and after a workout is essential when it comes to how to prevent muscle soreness. Stretching reduces muscle tension and prevents the uncomfortable sensation of sore muscles. Always stretch while your body is warm. If stretching will be incorporated into your warm-up, save it for right after your warm-up. Similarly, it’s good to stretch right after your workout is complete, while your body’s temperature is still warm and subsequently more flexible.

Extended stretching, however, is not recommended before a workout. Stretching for extended periods of time will turn the signals off from the brain to the muscle, so it is only after a workout that you should do long, deep, extended stretching.

Stretching before a workout should be limited to excessively tight or sore muscles, to improve functionality and reduce pain or soreness.


Stretching helps reduce lactic acid that has accumulated inside the body from working out. Stretching after your workout also relaxes your muscles, so they can recover faster. Stretching is therefore an important component of the post-workout “cool down”.

A 5-minute cooldown is another good tip for how to reduce muscle soreness. A cool-down can include light stretches or a walk. Cooldowns help your heart rate gradually return to normal. This reduces your chance of a dizzy spell or lightheadedness.

4. Foam Rolling or Using a Theragun Before and After Your Workout
Everyone should have a foam roller. Before your workout, foam rolling helps increase tissue elasticity, while improving your range of motion and blood flow. Foam rolling gets blood flow to the muscles you’re about to work out and releases any tight spots that would otherwise hinder your mobility and interfere with your workout performance. In other words, foam rolling can help you move more easily with a better range of motion during your workout, and the improved blood flow helps protect you from muscle injury.

Foam rolling post-workout helps prevent muscle soreness, too. Rolling out your exerted muscles post-workout releases toxins from your muscles and reduces the onset of potential soreness.

By foam rolling, you’ll increase blood flow to the tissues, which speeds healing and muscle recovery. Foam rolling does hurt sometimes, but it helps reduce tightness in your muscles and it acts as a myofascial release or self-massage.

Similarly, massage gun therapy such as using a Theragun helps increase blood circulation, allowing more oxygen and nutrients to reach your muscles. Massage gun therapy also helps release lactic acid build-up in the body from exercise.

5. Know Your Weightlifting Limits and Alternate Muscle Groups

Get advice from a fitness professional about which weight is right for you to be lifting. If you want to increase the weight you’re lifting, it’s important to do this gradually. You cannot suddenly decide to start lifting weights three times heavier than what you’re used to. If you do, it’s practically guaranteed that significant muscle soreness will occur.

Remember that having a weekly workout routine that alternates different muscle groups on different days helps prevent soreness. If you’re wondering how to prevent muscle soreness, one of the best tips is to alternate working out different body parts on different days. This way, your arms have a chance to rest while you do a “Leg Day”, and vice versa.

6. Drink Lots of Water and Electrolytes Before and During Your Workout

Dehydrated muscles will become tight and more easily injured. Keep hydrated by drinking lots of water both before, during and after your workout. Muscle cells need hydration to recover from being exerted, and that means you need to hydrate all day, not just during your workout.

In addition to drinking water, sports drinks or beverages that contain electrolytes and vitamin C are good to drink on intense workout days. Vitamin C can prevent muscle soreness, and replenishing your electrolytes that you lost during your workout is important for muscle recovery as we. A smoothie with coconut water (for the electrolytes) and citrus fruits such as oranges and strawberries (for the vitamin C) is a great post-workout recovery drink.

Final Tips on How to Reduce Muscle Soreness

In addition to the above tips for how to reduce muscle soreness, you can try eating more potassium-rich foods and lean protein, giving your body the nutrients it needs for muscle recovery. Potassium is known for helping prevent cramps and muscle soreness.Furthermore, try hot yoga and other forms of stretching and mobility exercises. 

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