Finally a fitness post coming at you! There’s plenty more where this one came from, but I thought this was a good place to start. You know the feeling, you’ve done a full body session in the gym and can’t decide if it hurts more to lift your arm to grab a drink or to sit down on the toilet. You don’t have to live like that you know, there are things you can do to reduce that muscle soreness post workout!
- Warm up properly I recommend you warm up your whole body regardless of whether its leg day or arm day, something to get your entire body moving and the blood pumping before you start your workout. Ideally this would include a pulse raiser, some mobility exercises and then some stretching too.
- Cool down properly Cooling down is just as important as your warm up but I feel like this often gets neglected, I know I do sometimes! You want to slowly bring your heart rate back down to normal and then do some deep stretching, focusing more on the areas you know you’ve worked harder.
- Walk to and from the gym This helps to reduce lactic acid by keeping the blood flow going after your workout and acts as a little warm up on the way there.
- Deep Stretching Not just a 2 minute stretch after your workout, but a 30-60 minute full body stretch will do you wonders!
- Epsom Salt Bath My personal favourite. The water as hot as you can bare, a couple of scoops of salts and a bath bomb. Perfection.
- Hot/Cold Shower If you don’t have a bath, this is the next best thing. You want to put the water as cold as you can and run it over your muscles for 30 seconds, then as hot as you can for the same time, and repeat that at least 3 times.
- Trigger Point Pilates My secret weapon! If you’d like to learn more then please get in touch, but it basically combines Pilates and certain equipment to perform a kind of self massage and fascia release. Magic.
- Foam Rolling Not as effective as Trigger Point, but can also work. I have videos of this on my Instagram @laurenhollie_fitness.
- Diet Eating a healthy balanced diet making sure you’re getting enough protein will ensure that your muscles are recovering as best they can.
- Stay Hydrated So important! You should be drinking around 2 litres of water regardless, so if you’re doing a lot of physical activity throughout the day or a heavy gym session, aim for 3-4!
I hope some of those tips were useful – let me know if you’ve got any more that I might have missed and tell me which your favourite method is!
L x
[…] a difference in reducing muscle soreness, preventing Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (read my post 10 Ways To Reduce DOMS) and generally making me feel more relaxed after my workout. In conjunction with a thorough […]