How to Deal With Muscle Soreness After Working Out

After Saturday’s bootcamp workout, my muscle soreness lasted longer and was actually more intense than I had first thought. My soreness certainly highlighted the parts of my body I have to work out more…

After speaking with Lara, we determined that one big problem was that we didn’t stretch after the intense one-hour-long class. The instructor kept saying that we had to stretch after class on our own, but we were both used to stretching as part of a class, and we never got around to it. Well, actually, we went and got coffee instead… :-)

When I was still quite sore on Monday evening, I decided to do some research to see what I could do to alleviate the pain. I did a quick search and found some good information on About.com: Sports Medicine in an article entitled Muscle Pain and Soreness After Exercise – What Is Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. 

Here are some of the recommendations to alleviate soreness that the article lists; I did a few of them:

• Ice bath
• Active recovery, such as low-impact aerobic exercises – Going for a walk actually helped
• Gentle stretching – Yes, stretching did make me feel better…
• Gentle massage
• Yoga

Here are some of the recommendations regarding prevention of soreness from the article; I don’t think I followed any of them!:

• Warm up – We warmed up in class, but I’m not sure it was enough… In fact, the warm up felt more like a workout… :-)
• Cool down with stretching – Nope.
• When starting a new activity, start slowly and increase the intensity gradually. – Certainly didn’t do that…
• Don’t make sudden changes to your exercise routine – Nope again.

Questions: When was the last time you got really sore after a workout? What did you do to alleviate the pain?

Finally, have you entered my Amazing Grass Giveaway yet?

 
Be well,
Andrea