Muscle Soreness

Give your muscles a day to rest.

Drink lots and lots of water

Breathe deeply during your workouts (lactic acid).

Warm up and cool down.

Try warm soaks and I am a personal fan of Arnica gel.

Hope that helps.

D

Ask a loved one for a nice massage, deep kneading, maybe some heat. This plan works out great for my wife, but it's never worked out for me. Hmmmmmm :huh:

So, I've had muscle soreness since I've been doing serious workouts, burning 600+ calories a workout. I wouldn't mind the soreness because quite frankly the soreness quietly tells me "you did good today." But it really puts a damper on my motivation doing a next workout, just because it hurts! I've been working out everday, and with a trainer some of the days.

I just did a 60 minute cardio workout split up between the stair master, treadmill/weights, and the eliptical. I am sore, and on top of feeling the soreness from today I feel the soreness from my previous days' workouts. My muscles are pooped. I have a session with my trainer 8am. I don't want to seem like a weakling, or like I'm complaining.

Sorry for such a long reason for a simple question, what can I do to ease muscle soreness?

It can be tricky trying to accomplish a volume of quality exercise as part of a weight loss program. Ideally, your body needs to follow a varied routine--longer, easier days combined with medium "tempo" days, combined with harder interval days combined with rest days.

We find it hard sometimes to back off, because we are trying to push ourselves to burn as many calories as possible. Unfortunately, that can lead to diminishing returns--fatigue, overtraining, demotivation, soreness, injury and even plateauing.

You can try to build in recovery days where you do something lower level, but longer amounts of time to burn up some calories. I tried walking on the treadmill at a more leisurely pace for 1+ hours instead of sitting on the couch watching a particular TV show.

Or you need to build in some rest days.

Muscle soreness in not an inherently good thing. Sometimes it just happens if you are just starting or are ramping up your program or trying a new activity, but it is not something that should be routinely occurring. Once you get it, there's not much you can do except ride it out. Any palliative intervention--warm water, heating pad--is just temporary while you are applying it--it doesn't have any lasting effect and doesn't speed up the recovery process.

The best "cure" for muscle soreness is prevention--try not to get it in the first place. Soreness is caused by a load -- movement, resistance load, etc--that is greater than what your body is ready to handle. It is particularly associated with eccentric muscle contractions. It has nothing to do with lactic acid.

Oooooo....good idea.

I'm afraid, my DH is with you Casper. I get the messages, he gets dinner fed to him. See, 50/50. lol.

I do the cooking in this house honey,,, :laugh:

Nah,,, she just doesn't have to cook. She's got plenty to put up with.

I take comfort in knowing that there is probably no cooler man the Jon Bon Jovi. Rich, famous, talented, handsome. And by all accounts, a genuinely great guy, good hubby & dad. And yet, despite all this,,, I'm certain Mrs. Bon Jovi believes that he is a total *kitten*. "No man is a hero to his valet"

NO PAIN NO GAIN!!!!!!

no but seriously, soreness is associated with lactic acid build up in the muscles. being sore does give you the feeling of I did good today/yesterday, and gives you the feeling of taking a day off because you are in fact sore. BUT a better way to get that soreness our (that acid), is to actually make sure that you move around and workout again the next day. In collegiate football after full games, we would come in the next morning, beaten and bruised, and run 10x100 yard run (half speed), and hit a light weight session, with a full out stretch. After that next day hour workout, you felt like a million$$$$.


other than that, water, water, water, stretch, light weights, and more stretching and water

With all due respect, muscle soreness has NOTHING to do with lactic acid. That is a discredited notion that was refuted in the early 1980s, primarily through the work of Brooks and Fahey.

While lactate accumulation is associated with muscle fatigue, lactic acid is not a "waste product", nor does it "build up" in muscles. Lactic acid is a dynamic metabolite that is used in a number ways--from direct oxidation to glycogen synthesis and it cleared rather quickly post-exercise.

Inquiry minds want to know:laugh: no one has said anything about ibuprofen???? I take a few when ive had aching soreness due to workouts. Along with good stretching and plenty of water and keeping mobile when at times im in pain.

You may want to split your workouts up. Arms one day Legs another, abs or some kind of mix. Your muscles do need time to heal. Each workout tears the micro-fibers of the muscle and then they need to heal.