muscle soreness

Whether you ran too hard, tried out your first TRX class, or woke up feeling unusually achy after a gym session, muscle soreness after working out is commonplace. While sore muscles are a sign that you're challenging your body, they can also put a damper on fitness goals. Here are seven ways to treat and prevent everyday soreness associated with working out.

1. Massage: If you're looking to relax and pamper your sore muscles, treat yourself to a massage. Besides relieving overworked muscles, a massage boosts the body's immunity system. If you went big this week and your muscles are feeling tighter than usual, skip the aromatherapy for a trigger-point or sports massage instead. It will feel a little more intense, but it's worth the payoff.
2. Foam Roller: Can't afford a massage? Go for the second best thing, and grab yourself a foam roller. The quick process of rolling out your body breaks up knots in muscles and is especially beneficial for trigger points like IT bands or shin-splint pain. Even better is that foam rolling helps to decrease future muscle pain and injury by keeping the body flexible and loose. Get started with these five stretches to do on a foam roller.
3. Active rest: Sometimes the best thing you can do for an overworked body is to give it a break — a rest day now will prevent a more serious (and sidelining) sports injury later. But that doesn't mean you have to lay in bed all day! Light to moderate activity helps the body recover by bringing oxygen and nutrients to damaged muscles. Just make sure to lay off the part of your body that is feeling the stress. Check out these active ways to take care of your body on a rest day.

Learn four more ways to treat sore muscles after the break!

You know the feeling: sore muscles after your workout. If you want to feel better fast, help speed the process along by doing these two things soon after your workout.

Feed them right: Eating or drinking protein soon after your workout will help repair spent muscles. The best postworkout foods are a mix of protein and carbs for energy and repair (a ratio of 4:1 carbs to protein, since carbs help replenish energy stores), so grab a yogurt or drink a chocolate milk. Want to quicken the process even more? Try a turmeric tea: the spice has anti-inflammatory properties that help accelerate muscle repair.

Get a massage: Who needs an excuse to get a massage? Sports massages feel oh-so-relieving, and there's good reason why. A new study found that getting a sports massage right after a workout decreases inflammation and boosts your muscles' oxygen intake, which helps your muscles rebuild and repair. Since it's not exactly possible to book a sports massage after every workout, make sure you keep up with your postworkout stretching and foam-rolling routine.

Whether you're easing pain right after a workout or later, find more tips for dealing with postworkout muscle soreness here.

"No pain, no gain" may be a common mantra in the fitness world, but it shouldn't always be that way. Sure, delayed muscle soreness (DOMS) means that you're building muscles that you may not be using regularly (a good thing), but it's not always ideal to feel sore after a workout. Read on for reasons why.

It could be an injury: While you may be used to that dull ache after an intense workout, make sure you understand whether or not the pain you're experiencing is normal DOMS and not an injury. Usually you can tell by whether or not pain is sharp or happens during your workout, since it can take 24 to 48 hours for normal DOMS to set in, or whether it's happening only on one side — if only your right shoulder hurts after lifting weights, for example, it could mean you've injured yourself.

More reasons why it's not always good to be sore after a workout after the break.

After an intense cardio workout or weight-training session, you might feel extreme exhaustion, muscle soreness, and nausea. This hit-by-a-truck feeling that you often wake up with the day after working out is called DOMS, which stands for delayed onset muscle soreness. Luckily, there are many preventative measures you can take to avoid it. Here's a quick list of 10 steps you should always take before, during, and after going to the gym.

1. Drink a cup or two of caffeinated tea or coffee before working out to increase muscular strength and endurance and reduce the chance of soreness.
2. Eat a preworkout snack that is low fat and high carb with some protein.
3. Take the time to warm up and cool down so you do not stress and overtax your muscles and heart.
4. Do not stop and start moving while exercising; instead, keep steadily moving so fresh blood will be sent to repair your taxed muscles.

For more tips to ease your case of DOMS keep reading.

Even if you exercise regularly, you've felt it: the aching, can't-sit-down-or-lift-my-arm muscle soreness the next day after a workout. That soreness you feel a day or two after an intense workout is known as DOMS, or delayed onset muscle soreness, and is caused by muscle microtearing, which helps build muscle fiber and make them stronger. I'm always a little pleased to feel sore after a workout, but even so, like many I've been guilty of using it as an excuse to skip out on a workout.

Last week, I was introduced to a few little-used muscles during a leg-focused strength-training session with my trainer at Crunch. Those subsequent days of dreading any stairs that popped up in my path led me to ask him how he deals with muscle soreness, and whether he recommends his clients power through the pain. Trainer Tim's response? Muscle soreness is rarely a good excuse to bypass the gym. Read on for his recommendations for dealing with muscle soreness during your exercise regimen.

We are pumped to share one of our fave stories from Self here on FitSugar!

If you're anything like me, your workout waves come in (short) fits and starts. At least you're doing something — that's how I rationalize it.

On the downside, that may mean that you get overzealous during exercise phases.  It's great to keep moving, but overshooting your fitness level — or even hitting the gym too much as a pro — can be counterproductive, actually slowing your progress.

Here, experts describe the pitfalls and warning signs of overexercise, plus some moves for massaging your own overworked muscles:

First, physical activity is supposed to be key to happiness and health, so how do we even know if we're overexercising?  American Council on Exercise-certified spokesperson and exercise physiologist Fabio Comana, M.A., M.S., says, "Exercise when it's modest to vigorous helps boost your immune system.  When you exercise too vigorously and don't allow for recovery, it actually represses your immune response."

Overexercising or "Overtraining Syndrome" may actually manifest like a cold or flu, in the sense that you'll feel worn out.  Explains Comana, these are some classic symptoms/signs:

1. Increased Heart Rate:
   As you become more conditioned, your heart rate should lower.  That's an adaptation of training.  If you're overtraining, your resting heart rate will rise, which also happens when you're under stress.  Lie in bed with your fingers on your pulse (wrist or neck) and count the number of beats per second to check. If you are under stress, maybe your body isn't up for the usual workout.  Stop training for a while, as you manage the stress in your life.  Or if exercise is a catharsis, scale back a little.  Maybe if you're doing five days a week, downshift to three.

Check out more warning signs that you may be overexercising and learn how to treat them after the break!

We are excited to share one of our fave stories from Shape here on FitSugar.

If your New Year's resolution to get in shape stalled out fast, you might be panicking right about now since bikini season is right around the bend. Making up for lost time with an aggressive workout routine will likely leave you sore, but begging for more once you see your thighs trim down and take form.

That burn you feel 24 to 48 hours after an intense workout is called delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), and it's enough to make you want to put down the Kettlebell and pick up a cocktail. But press on! We talked to fitness and nutrition expert Harley Pasternak, M.Sc., author of The 5-Factor World Diet, and trainer to celebrities like Lady Gaga, Megan Fox, and Halle Berry, about why (some) pain is good.

"The idea behind resistance training is that you're basically tearing something and creating a micro trauma in the muscle," Pasternak says. "When the muscle recovers, it's going to recover stronger and denser than it was before." So that soreness you feel the day after an upper-body workout — when you're hauling groceries into your car and you can hardly lift your arms — is good.

Just make sure what you're suffering from is DOMS and not an injury. "A good way to tell the difference is if the pain is bilateral," Pasternak says. Having one very sore shoulder after you've worked both shoulders could spell injury.

If you feel normal soreness in a muscle, ligament, or tendon, it's DOMS and you can continue working out around it, Pasternak says. In the case of arms and shoulders, you can work your quads, abs, or glutes and then move back to your upper body in a few days.

Now learn how to avoid post-workout pain with more tips from Harley.

If I had to choose, I'd pick a nice moist steam room over a sauna any day. But last month, I purchased a massage deal that came with an infrared sauna session. Anything that is said to "eliminate toxins" piques my interest, so I was excited about what my first infrared sauna experience was going to be all about.

An infrared sauna looks similar to a traditional sauna except there aren't any hot coals since the heat is emitted from the built-in infrared heaters, which are located in the sides and the top of the sauna (don't worry, they aren't even hot to touch). Unlike a normal sauna that heats up quite quickly, relaxes the body and opens up the pores for a serious sweat session, an infrared sauna safely penetrates deep into joints and muscles with the same rays that come from the sun — minus the UV radiation.

Keep reading to learn more about my first infrared session.

After complaining about muscle soreness to my yoga teacher, he suggested that I start concocting my own all-natural recovery drink. It's a simple recipe, too: one to two tablespoons of maple syrup and water. My teacher informed me that the sweet syrup not only provides the body with a little shot of carbs, but, more importantly, it helps with muscle recovery. Real maple syrup is an excellent source of manganese, which helps repair muscle and cell damage; it also keeps bones strong and blood sugar levels normal. Besides this important nutrient, maple syrup also contains zinc, iron, calcium, and potassium. And while it's definitely not a post-workout snack replacement, it's become my go-to drink after yoga.

Source: Flickr user little blue hen

Regardless of what gym I've belonged to, it feels like I am the only person that ever uses the sauna. Since I've been working out, there's only been one other time that I haven't been in there alone. I'm not sure if I'm hitting the gym at odd times or if folks are just not feeling the sauna as much as I do. It could be that they are afraid of their bits and pieces showing, a la Charlotte from Sex in the City.

If you are one of those who has an aversion to the sauna, give it a try the next time you're there. Because I've been bumping up my strength training sessions lately, I've been loving the sauna even more. The heat helps relax the muscles I've just worked and also helps alleviate some of the stiffness in my joints. I've even done a sauna before yoga because it helps my body get warm, loose, and flexible. It also feels marvelous after a hard swimming session.

Besides helping my body relax, saunas are a great way to open up the pores and sweat. Sounds gross, but sweating is the body's way of eliminating toxins and other impurities — taking regular saunas may even cut back on the number of colds and flu viruses you have.

If you do try the sauna and find that yours is more crowded than mine, remember to practice sauna etiquette: rinse off before entering to reduce odor and the spread of germs, have quiet conversations, and always sit on a towel. Most importantly, stay hydrated! Since the heat can be quite dehydrating, I always drink water before and after the sauna.

Do you love the sauna?

Source: Flickr User MiikaS