Let’s understand that why muscle soreness occurs and how we can get relief. You must be thinking of going to the gym but because of some reason you are not able to go to the gym but one day you watched Arnold Schwarzenegger’s movie and decided to go back to the gym. After so many days you went to the gym and lifted the heaviest Dumble. After this your body starts paining and you stopped lifting weights. After some time again you started lifting weights and again body pain starts to occur. After an intense workout, chemicals are released and starts getting stored in your body and this gives rise to acute muscle soreness. This chemical is known as lactic acid. After few minutes, body pain starts to decline but after 8 hours again body pain starts to occur. Again after 24 hours, body starts to pain but this time this pain can lead to difficulty in walking or even moving. This condition is known as Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS). If you are connected to fitness industry or for longer period of time you are working on your body, then there are no issues but if you are new then DOMS can stop you from doing your next workout. The actual reason of DOMS is still unknown, but it is said that after exercise, muscle cells start to break in cellular level and after that the pain receptors sends signal of pain and due to increase of calcium in muscles swell. There are many ways by which we can get relief.
Amino acid, L-Glutamine can give relief to DOMS. From a study which was held in 2013, if we consume caffeine before an hour then muscle soreness can be reduced till 2nd and 3rd day. For this you have to consume 400gm of caffeine for this you have to consume 4-5 cups of coffee. If you are applying this method in the evening, then this can interrupt your sleep at night. There are some more supplements which can lower your soreness like creatine, fish oil, taurine, Branch Amino Acid (BCAA). The most important is to modify your training. If you are new, then don’t start with heavy weights start with a lighter one and then increase. Muscles will start to adapt stress and pain and after few months, we can put more stress and increase weights. According to the research, after 1-6hrs of workout if we perform foam rolling then this can reduce muscle soreness at a very much level and the most important is quality sleep. Before starting something new make sure to have a quality sleep because body recovers best at the time when you are taking rest.
Drishti is an avid fitness enthusiast and helped innumerous number of people in reaching their fitness goals. She is here to make a difference to your health and fitness.
