For fitness beginners, muscle soreness post-exercise is a fact of life. Not only beginners but even seasoned fitness professionals are not exempted from these painful discomforts.

Who can forget the intensive muscle soreness that sets in a day after a first intensive leg workout session? While it is exhilarating to crush those weights, the day after presents you with searing pain that makes walking an uphill challenge.

But why do our muscles ache? How can we alleviate this discomfort? Drawing insights from our fitness experts at Be Simply Awesome, we've addressed these common questions in this blog. If you're a fitness enthusiast seeking relief from post-workout muscle soreness and ways to reduce its occurrence, this blog is tailored for you.

Today, we'll start by exploring the primary causes of muscle soreness following fitness routines, then provide five practical relief strategies that can reduce muscle soreness. Read on:

Why Do Our Muscles Scream Pain After a Workout Session?

The micro-trauma of muscles and DOMS that sets in after 12-24 hours of a workout session are the primary reasons for muscle soreness after the workout. While the term micro-trauma may seem problematic, it is a normal and essential part of muscle growth.

• Muscles grow when we stress them enough with our workouts. Every eccentric contraction induces stress & creates micro-tears in the muscles. These micro tears trigger muscle repair, leading to muscle growth, but not before the inflammatory response subsides in pain.

• This micro-trauma results in pain that sets in 12-24 hours after the workout. This pain, called DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness), is primarily due to nerve sensitivity and inflammatory substances released by the body to repair these damages. Eventually, the pain subsides, and muscles become stronger after the power heals, which is natural.

So muscle soreness is a painful reality of exercise that challenges our muscles or after a period of inactivity. In essence, through these aches, our body strengthens and grows our muscles.

But is there a way to bypass or alleviate this muscle soreness? Can we relieve our body from this painful discomfort after a workout?

It happens that few recovery and preventive strategies can help manage this soreness. Let us find them out.

5 Ways to Relieve Sore Muscles after a Workout:

Warm-Up to Tone-down Your Pain: A warm-up routine prepares your body for the physical stress of the exercise. When done right, the warm-up exercises increase blood flow, reduce muscle tightness, prime the joints, ligaments, and tendons for the exercise, and thus reduce the risk of injury and severity of muscle soreness.

So a proper warm-up is a must if the exercises are performed after a period of inactivity.( And this is also precisely why every online fitness training session at Be Simple Awesome starts with a full-fledged warm-up routine.)

Steady Progress is Key to Reduced Pain: Gradual progression in exercise allows our body time to adapt to increasing physical stress demands. This gradual adaptation minimizes the micro-trauma of muscle fibers, cuts down the muscle soreness after workouts, and reduces the chance of injury.

Foam Roller is Your Friend: A foam roller is the most effective tool to loosen up the muscles to reduce swelling and tenderness post-exercise. By applying pressure to specific muscle groups, a foam roller breaks up the muscle knots, improves blood flow, and increases the range of motion. All these benefits combine to reduce DOMS, according to a review published in the International Journal of Sports Physical Therapy.

More Water, Less Pain: Hydration is the always most overlooked aspect of muscle recovery. Hydration helps reduce inflammation, flushes out metabolic wastes, and increases the delivery of nutrients to the muscles to aid healing. When combined with proper warm-up, gradual progress and sufficient hydration can significantly help reduce muscle soreness and improve recovery.

Cool-Down to Cut-down Muscle Soreness: If a warm-up primes our muscles and joints for the physical stresses of exercise, an excellent down aids in gradually returning the body to rest and recovery. A proper cool-down technique involves light exercises that reduce muscle tightness, improve flexibility, and flush out metabolic waste products, eventually accelerating recovery and reducing muscle soreness.

Success Starts with a Structured Approach:

Every gym enthusiast brims with vim and vigour and eagerly jumps headfirst into a heavy exercise load. This zeal often results in severe muscle soreness, unbearable pain, extended exercise breaks, or eventual quitting.

It is essential for every fitness enthusiast to put all the above tips together to break the above pattern. So, having a structured approach and even a helping hand or necessary assistance is always recommended to help you break this pattern and score your fitness goals.

Build a Lifestyle - Be Committed, Be Consistent & Be Simply Awesome:

It is not aspiration that brings results; results demand habits and a lifestyle cultivated by structured programs. So we advise you not to rely on inspiration that fades; always trust the structured fitness programs that can help you build a lifestyle.

With this aim, Be Simply Awesome has developed online fitness programs and instructor-led fitness training sessions. From the first warm-up routine to the last cool-down session, we walk you through and guide you at every step and turn of your fitness journey with our fitness training sessions.

If you are a fitness enthusiast looking for structured online fitness training sessions that are geared towards bringing consistent results and gains, you can contact us.