I have had this question a few times already about the best way to stop the painfully sore muscles you get after doing High Intensity Workouts. Now, there is no magic way to prevent them from being sore because it is your body healing and growing, but there are ways to ease the pain and reduce it to a very minimal amount.
I am usually fairly sore after an intense Insanity workout but the next day I keep moving and keep with the workouts and after the first week of working out I am not so sore anymore. I keep hydrated with water all day and I also eat plenty of good proteins, supplement with whey protein and
Shakeology, which helps. Also, E & E (Energy and Endurance) supplement will help you pre-workout.
These two articles from
beachbody have some great tips to help you with post workout sore muscles.
The first is a way to prevent sore muscles and the second is a more detailed look at foam rolling:
Recovery Done Right: 8 Ways to Prevent Muscle Soreness
By Kara Wahlgren
Aching after a brutal workout? Delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS)
can make you feel the burn while your muscles recover and rebuild. But,
if you take the right steps after your workout, you can go hard without
paying the price. Here are 8 easy ways to prevent postworkout pain.
- Stretch. Stretching is your first line of defense after a good
workout. "When you train, you contract the muscles, and the muscle
fibers get shorter," says Steve Edwards, Head of Fitness and Nutrition
Development at Beachbody®. "Lengthening them after a workout
promotes mobility, and can lead to a more thorough recovery." While
fitness experts can't seem to agree on this strategy[1]—one Australian study[2] claimed that stretching had no impact on muscle soreness—it certainly won't hurt, especially if your flexibility is limited.
- Eat for rapid recovery. In
a study on "nutrient timing," researchers found that a postworkout
drink with between a 3:1 to 5:1 carb-to-protein ratio reduced muscle
damage and improved recovery times[3]. A tough workout
depletes blood sugar, as well as the glycogen stored in your muscles.
Restoring that supply within an hour of finishing your workout is your
body's top priority. P90X® Results and Recovery Formula®
is optimized with the 4:1 ratio, but in a pinch, down a glass of grape
juice with whey protein powder or a glass of chocolate milk. Denis Faye,
Beachbody's Nutrition Expert, explains. "When the sugar [from the
drink] rushes into your muscles to restore that supply, the protein
piggybacks to jump-start the recovery process."
Ice it. Immediately
after a tough workout, icing your muscles can stave off inflammation.
"Inflammation is one of nature's defense mechanisms, but it works like a
cast—it immobilizes you," Edwards says. "When you keep inflammation
down, that area is free to keep moving, and movement promotes healing."
Like stretching, its effectiveness is up for debate—some researchers
have claimed that ice is only effective for injuries and not for
run-of-the-mill soreness[4], but it's a simple and safe option that many top-level athletes swear by[5].
"Unless you ice so long that you give yourself frostbite, there's
really no danger," Edwards says. "It seems to really speed up healing
without any adverse effects."- Change your diet. "When
your muscles are sore, inflammation is a huge part of the problem,"
Faye says. To help reduce this inflammation, add foods that are rich in
omega-3s—such as salmon, free-range meat, flax, avocado, and walnuts[6]—to your diet. The natural anti-inflammatory properties[7]
of these foods can help dial back the soreness after overexertion.
Amino acid supplements can also help with muscle recovery after a
high-intensity workout[8].
- Massage your sore spots. A recent study found that massage can reduce inflammatory compounds called cytokines[9].
One type of massage that's gaining popularity is myofascial release,
which targets the connective tissue covering the muscles. You can hit
these areas yourself using a foam roller—put the roller on the floor,
use your body weight to apply pressure, and roll back and forth over the
sore areas for about 60 seconds. But . . . before you do, make sure
you're rehydrated and your heart rate is back to normal. "When your
muscles are hot and loaded with lactic acid, you might make it worse,"
Edwards says. For a more detailed tutorial on foam rolling, check out
the Beachbody Tai Cheng® program.
- Get heated. While
ice can work wonders immediately after a workout, heat can help once
your muscles have returned to their resting temperature[10].
"Heat increases circulation, especially focused heat in a jacuzzi, where
you can hit areas like joints that don't normally get a lot of
circulation," Edwards says. Just don't jump in the hot tub immediately
after a workout, because the heat can exacerbate inflammation, and the
jets can pound your already-damaged muscles. Edwards cautions, "When
your body heat is already high and you have a lot of muscle breakdown,
sitting in a hot tub with the jets would be counterintuitive."
Move it. You
may be tempted to plant yourself on the couch until the pain subsides,
but don't skip your next workout. Circulation promotes healing, so it
helps to get your heart pumping—just don't overdo it. "Active recovery"
is low-intensity exercise that gets your blood flowing without taxing
your muscles. What qualifies as low-intensity? It depends on your
typical workout. If you know your training zones, you can use a heart
rate monitor. But, Edwards says, the easiest way to engage in active
recovery is to exert around 50% of your max effort, and keep your heart
rate below 140 bpm or so. Most Beachbody workout programs include a
recovery workout, but if yours doesn't, a gentle yoga class or going on
an easy hike are good options.- Pop a painkiller—if you must. Nonsteroidal
anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen can relieve pain, but many
experts aren't sure if they're worth the risk. "A lot of athletes call
it 'Vitamin I,'" Edwards says. But he cautions that NSAIDs can cause
nasty side effects and accelerate muscle breakdown. "The only time they
might help is if you're in so much pain that you can't do low-level
exercise—you can't get off the couch," Edwards says. In that case, meds
might help, but be careful not to overdo it—because if you're not
feeling pain, you may push too hard and cause an injury.
Foam Rolling: Your Tight Muscles' Best Friend
By Dr. Mark Cheng, L.Ac., Ph.D., Sr RKC, FMS faculty One
of the biggest obstacles for a new fitness enthusiast to overcome is
the soreness that comes with using muscles that haven't been used in
decades. During infancy, we're learning to fire muscles all over the
place. As we grow, spend increasingly more hours in flexion, and use
less and less of our God-given ranges of motion, our bodies devolve from
the machines of movement they were designed to be into blobs of
tension, immobility, and sometimes pain.
Oh, those aching muscles!
If
you're feeling a little bit stiff and sore after your first few days of
working out again, don't despair. It's totally natural. If you haven't
exercised in a while, then the several dozen squats, kicks, push-ups, or
gingas that you did over the past day or two certainly placed a demand
on your body that it hasn't been used to. That means your muscles got a
pump like they haven't had in quite a while, unless you've been doing
similar movements in your prior exercises or your daily life. Even if
you already work out with some regularity, a significant change in your
routine can be enough to leave your body nice and achy. Don't believe
me? Just ask any athlete how he or she feels when the strength and
conditioning coach throws a new program into the mix.
While
some will tell you that the discomfort of soreness is nothing to concern
yourself with, others might use those aching muscles as an excuse to
skip a day or two or three, derailing a solid start to a successful
workout program. While pain is nothing to trifle with, as it can clearly
lead to or indicate injury, don't use it as justification to bail out
on training. I might have a solution for you that's simple enough to use
and seriously effective when properly used!
Enter the foam roller.
When
I first saw the foam roller in different exercise routines in the gym, I
admit it . . . I wasn't exactly impressed. The trainers who I saw back
then were focused on using the foam roller as an instability device,
training their clients to position the roller across or along the spine
to perform different crunch-like exercises. Now while I absolutely
recognize the worth of some core engagement exercises that rely on
instability training, some of what I saw looked like little more than
very poorly taught stupid human tricks.
Fast forward a few years
to the Russian Kettlebell Challenge Level 2 certification workshop with
former world-class gymnast, powerlifting record holder, and
ultra-marathoner Mark "Rif" Reifkind. Rif was teaching a section of the
workshop that centered on the foam roller, and his SMFR approach to the
roller was completely different from what I'd seen before.
SMFR . . . No, it's not what you're thinking!
SMFR
stands for Self-Myofascial Release, a rather long and fancy word for
self-massage. As muscles work, they generate metabolic wastes, such as
lactic acid. As those wastes build up in the muscles, they create a
balloon effect, making the muscles swell up. While a larger muscle
certainly might look cosmetically appealing, the congestion in the
muscle tends to make its fascial envelope stretch taut, unable to
contract more fully or relax more freely until the extra fluid is moved
out. Light massage techniques, such as Swedish, serve to help push these
metabolites out of the muscle bed, allowing for a quicker recovery and
return to training.
Muscles
that "knot up" have trigger points. Trigger points tend to be
indicative of more chronic problems, either in movement or posture or
exertion. These trigger points can occur at different depths, depending
on which section of the muscle is being engaged most with the movements
or exercises that are being performed. The fascial membrane that
surrounds muscles or the muscle fibers themselves can contract. When the
body senses that the level of exertion is above the contractile
strength or endurance of the myo (muscular) or fascial tissues involved,
the body knots up those fibers as a survival strategy. The only problem
with that strategy is that those knots inhibit movement and cause pain.
Not all created equal?
Foam
rolling helps address the problems of muscle congestion and trigger
points by mechanically pressing into the muscle. That said, there are
different types of rollers that best address the different problems you
might face. A smooth, soft roller is generally more effective for the
more superficial trigger points and for moving the metabolites out of
congested muscles. A roller with uneven surfaces, such as the
RumbleRoller
™, is ideal for getting into the deeper trigger points and more deep tissue approaches.
If
you're someone who tends to like deep pressure in a massage, go for the
RumbleRoller. If deeper pressure tends to be too uncomfortable for you,
go for the smoother roller. The important thing to remember in
self-myofascial release is that rolling can feel uncomfortable at the
outset. When you find the muscles that are congested or triggered up,
the pressure of the roller may cause a bit of discomfort. Roll your body
just to the edge of the discomfort. Focus on relaxing the muscles on
the roller and breathe. As your nervous system responds to the pressure,
it will learn to relax the trigger points on the roller and restore the
contractile ability of the muscle.
Ready, aim, fire!
The
first thing I did when I started rolling was to look for every place on
my body that was sore and try to roll them out . . . Bad decision. The
muscles that are the most chronically uncomfortable are usually those
that are paying the price for other muscles that either aren't firing
enough or are so knotted up that they're not allowing proper movement.
The trick to using your foam roller in the most effective manner is
really to look for the places in your body that aren't obviously hurting
but are restricting your movement.
In
one of my earliest video clips for Beachbody, I spoke about plantar
fasciitis, pain along the underside of the foot. One of the key areas to
roll when first trying to deal with plantar fasciitis should be the
calf muscles. Using the roller, slowly go back and forth along the
muscle, consciously trying to relax as much as possible and going as
slowly as possible. When you find the "hot spots," stay on them, relax
some more, and go back and forth a few times until the trigger point
releases. You might be pleasantly surprised to find out that the chronic
pain in your foot actually had its roots in your calf!
I hope these tips were helpful to you and that you get the maximum benefits from your workouts without injuries or getting so sore you can not function. I firmly believe in these tips because they work for me and I know they can work for you as well.
Good luck and keep pressing play.
Last night Karen and I did our Insanity workouts. We had a double day with Pure Cardio and then we had to do Cardio Abs. Such a great thing that I can be doing these workouts with my wife now and help to get her in shape. This is my second time doing Insanity since completing it last July and her first.
