Having sore muscles after a good work out session is a common experience. This is known as delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) and can happen anywhere from 24 to 72 hours after engaging in intense or unfamiliar exercises. DOMS is a result of micro trauma to the muscle fibers and leads to an inflammatory response causing muscle discomfort.
There's a couple ways to help reduce delayed onset muscle soreness.
Dynamic stretching before exercising and doing static stretching during cool down helps to reduce soreness and improve recovery time.
Foam rolling and massage therapy are two other ways to help increase blood flow into the muscles and reduce tension.
Antioxidants such as vitamin C and vitamin E help to mitigate the inflammatory response associated with DOMS. Although caution with over supplementing in vitamin E as it can be toxic.
So if you want to reduce muscle soreness after a great workout and enhance your recovery, try to incorporate some of these strategies. And keep using it!
