When your muscles are sore, it can be hard to keep up with your exercise routines and improve your physical health. Therefore, the best thing you can do is remedy your aches and pains before they start to limit your wellness goals. Here are 10 all natural ways to do that:
- Do a warm-up and cool-down. A lot of muscle soreness can be avoided by working your muscles slowly and intentionally both before and after your exercise sessions.
- Engage in lighter exercise. If your pain is due to overworking your muscles, lighten up on the intensity of your workouts until the aches subside.
- Try stretches. Sometimes aches are caused by muscles that are too tight, meaning that a few long, soothing stretches will ease the tension and the pain.
- Switch up your exercises. If your upper body is sore, stick to lower body workouts for a while and vice versa. Work the areas that don’t hurt to give the other areas time to heal.
- Hit the pool. Mix the cold pool water and the stretching of your body to swim a few strokes and you’ve got a recipe for muscle relief.
- Soothe the area with ice. Cold packs restrict the flow of blood to inflamed muscles, thereby reducing your soreness. Go 20 minutes on and 20 minutes off the first 1-3 days after the pain starts.
- Stay away from heat. Although you may want to reach for a heating pad for relief, doing so may actually give you more pain, especially within the first day after the soreness presents itself.
- Compress the area, if you can. If possible, wrap the affected area with exercise tape to give it extra stability until it can properly heal.
- Get a massage. When your muscle aches are due to overworking them versus injuring them, a gentle massage may help make you feel better quicker.
- Take a break. If your muscles are extremely sore, you may be better off bypassing your workout sessions until they heal or you risk doing more damage than good.