As I type this blog, I’m sitting here with incredible soreness! I’m not sure I’ve felt this sore in a long time. This past week I’ve been teaching my classes, doing some 21 Day Fix, and I’ve been moving furniture and boxes. Yeeow! My body says “Mercy.” I’m sure you’ve been there. You may be there right now as you are reading this. Soreness is not necessarily a bad thing, because it means you’ve worked the body really well and the muscles are going to heal up stronger and more resilient. However, the key word here is “heal.” So, what should you do when you hurt all over with muscle soreness?
A lot of people feel as though they just need to lay low and do nothing, but sometimes that can actually slow the process a bit and make you feel even more sore. Some people think they should just use saunas, steam rooms, and heating pads. Those may feel good, but heat actually can cause swelling, and we don’t want our healing muscles to be swelling. I want to give you some suggestions to help you through the sore time. Now, keep in mind that these tips are for soreness specifically… injury is a whole other story.
TIPS FOR SORENESS
1.) General Movement. When you are sore, staying still can make it worse, whereas movement can help alleviate the soreness. I don’t recommend intense movement, but just walking can surely help out. If you are following a specific workout calendar you can always continue on, but modify your workout to be more low impact so that it doesn’t push the soreness too far.
2.) Yoga. It always feels good to stretch sore muscles, but make sure to progress the body into the stretches with proper warm-up. This is why I suggest yoga, because yoga is structured to get the body warmed up before getting into deeper stretches. If you are following a specific workout program, you can always put the yoga workout on a different day if you reeeeeeeally need it badly.
3.) Foam Rolling. Foam rolling is an excellent way to work through sore muscles… it’s basically like giving yourself a massage. Some gyms offer foam rolling classes. OR, if you are a member of Beachbody On Demand, I HIGHLY recommend the Recovery + Mobility workout in P90X2. This workout will take you through some basic range of motion exercises for movement, and then have you foam rolling out the soreness. It’s gooooood, y’all!
4.) Ice. Using ice packs or a good ice gel can help with the soreness as well (my favorite is called China Gel).
I hope these tips help you work through your soreness. Remember, it’s always the worst when you are just starting out with exercise OR when you move onto a new phase of exercise (either trying a new class or moving on to the next phase of your Beachbody workout program). Soreness is not a bad thing to seek. You want it if you want progress. If you keep doing the same workout over and over again and no longer get tired or sore, it means that your body has adapted, which also likely means that you’ve hit a plateau. To get over that, you’ll need to change things up and seek some soreness again. Happy soreness to you! I’m off to do some low impact Turbo.
