Fight Back! Effective Ways to Manage Soreness and Fatigue
Do you wake up with the sun only to find out that your body is just now starting to feel the aftermath of the previous day’s workout? It’s a reality for anyone who engages in physical fitness or sporting activities, meaning, hey: we’ve all been there before!
This post-workout soreness, while inevitable, is also an essential process of accumulating and building more muscle and strength. If you work out hard enough for a period of time, you will get stronger. Push too hard and it’s easy to over-do it, especially if you enjoy what you do!
Pushing too hard for too long can lead to joint pain and, further down the road, can even explode into a full-blown injury. But you won’t be doing that anytime soon, will you? Here, we’ll help you with ways you can manage and control those post-workout blues.
Why So Sore?
If you’ve ever worked out, or even if you’ve helped move furniture from one house to another, you’ve probably experienced some type of muscle soreness or residual aches and pains.
Roughly one to two days after exercise, your muscles will probably feel a varying degree of soreness. This is caused by micro-tears that form in your muscles when you strength train.
These tiny tears in your muscles then trigger muscle protein synthesis (or the process of building new muscle). In that time you will most likely experience the phenomenon known as Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness, or simply DOMS.
What’s The Big Deal With DOMS?
You can thank DOMS for that stiff, achy feeling the day after a hard workout. But, you know there is something gratifying about being sore the next day. In a strange way, it gives you a sense of accomplishment that you kicked butt in the gym.
But just in case soreness doesn’t fit into your day, here are some helpful ways to manage and control it.
Let’s W.A.I.T. the Soreness Away
Not only is it important to work hard when you exercise, it’s equally important to prioritize muscle recovery between workouts. Unmanaged stiffness and aches can lead to muscle fatigue, performance loss, and even joint injury.
Luckily for you, we’ve managed to narrow optimal muscle recovery into four main tips. You can use the acronym W.A.I.T. to help you remember them.
Warm-up before EVERY workout
This is self-explanatory! Spend at least 5-15 min warming-up your body. This will go a long way to help keep your body strong, healthy, and safe from injury.
Cossack Squats, a staple in the GymnasticBodies Courses, are an excellent way to feel out the tight spots and warm up your lower body prior to training.
Avoid exercising Through “Joint Pain”
No matter how much they say it’s good for you, joint pain is not something that you want to test your limits on. If you are either a) performing an exercise that causes joint pain or b) using incorrect form that results in joint pain it’s best to stop and reassess the situation.
If the exercise is appropriate for your skill level, then chances are that a few tweaks can help avoid stress to the joint. If the exercise is too demanding then, maybe it’s time to choose an alternative.
Invest Time Into Stretching and Mobility
If you are an adult that lives in the adult world, that also works an adult job, then chances are that you could benefit from stretching out your tired, hard-working body. A little bit a day goes a long way to help keep the doctor away.
Train Smart: Have a Plan
“A goal without a plan is just a wish” the French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery once said. And that rings just as true today, in your fitness pursuits.
And without direction, your goals will be just that. A wish. We don’t mean to say that you need to need the exact formula to start, but rather a blueprint for success.
Let Foundation One be your blueprint for achieving higher levels of strength and mobility. Arm yourself against pain and injury with safe, healthy and effective GymnasticBodies training— and remember, a little bit of soreness is your body’s way of reminding you that you ARE getting stronger.
