Muscle soreness (also known as delayed onset muscle soreness or “DOMS”) is something we can all relate to. The sore legs and various other sore muscles we experience after a hard workout can be an uncomfortable feeling. Although this is perfectly normal, sore muscles becomes a problem when it interferes with your muscle recovery. If your muscle soreness after a workout sticks around until your next workout, this is going to negatively impact your workout AND further interfere with the muscle recovery process. Thus, it’s essential that you optimize your muscle recovery after a workout in order to minimize muscle soreness – and no, ice baths or stretching after a workout won’t help! In this video I’ll go over 4 science-backed tips to enhance muscle recovery and provide fast muscle soreness relief. I’ll discuss the topics of foam rolling, active recovery (cool downs) and various supplements that have been shown to relieve muscle soreness and enhance muscle recovery.
SCIENCE BASED PROGRAMS:
https://builtwithscience.com/bws-free-fitness-quiz/gender?utm_source=Youtube&utm_medium=Video&utm_content=Description%20box&utm_campaign=Relieve%20muscle%20soreness%20April%2015%2F2018
MY FOAM ROLLER RECOMMENDATIONS:
http://amzn.to/2lz9nYi (the one I was using in this video)
http://amzn.to/2lB4duO (a slightly better, more compact one I use)
*these are affiliate links and I will receive a portion of the sale through these links – so thank you if you decide to purchase one!*
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INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/jayethierfit/
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WRITTEN ARTICLE (BUILTWITHSCIENCE.COM):
https://builtwithscience.com/reduce-muscle-soreness/
STUDIES:
Soreness interferes w/ workout/recovery:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22377437
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22876722
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20495928
Ice baths:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24768476
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24552795
https://physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1113/JP270570
Static stretching:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC119442/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12617692
Foam rolling:
https://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/Fulltext/2014/01000/Foam_Rolling_as_a_Recovery_Tool_after_an_Intense.19.aspx
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24567859
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25415413
Active recovery:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10994909
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1592061
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7827630
Omega-3:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29510597
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19451765 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28717347 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22902522
Caffeine:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17161977 , https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=hurley+caffeine+doms
MUSIC:
Song 1 = Lakey Inspired – “Going Up”
Song 2 = Lakey Inspired – “Better Days”
the soreness you feel a day or two after a workout is something you’re all probably familiar with this feeling known as delayed onset muscle soreness or Dom’s is thought to be caused by microscopic tears in your muscle fibers that occur from resistance training or just a novel stimulus in general and aside from just being generally uncomfortable particularly with leg soreness too much soreness can also negatively impact your training if it carries over into your next workouts studies show that training a muscle while it’s still sore can reduce the activation of the desired muscle reduce the force capacity of the muscle by up to 50% and negatively interfere with a recovery process therefore it’s vital that you take the necessary steps in order to minimize post workout soreness and speed up the muscle recovery process and although two common suggestions are to take ice baths or stretch after your workout this actually isn’t the best advice to take although ice baths may slightly help with muscle soreness they’ve also been shown to hinder muscle growth and strength by interfering with a muscle recovery process and as for static stretching multiple studies from the Journal of Sports Medicine have indicated that it actually doesn’t help with muscle soreness and may interfere with the recovery process as well therefore both of these wouldn’t be the ideal solution for those who want to prioritize muscle growth and strength so what exactly can you do well aside from the general recommendations of been taking adequate protein and getting enough sleep there’s a few extra steps you can take which is exactly what I’ll cover in this video self myofascial release most commonly done in the form of foam rolling has become increasingly popular in recent years aside from its positive effect on improving mobility it seems to also be an effective way of reducing muscle soreness and although research is still lacking of the four available studies that have directly analysed the effect of formal and on muscle soreness three of them showed a positive effect on reducing muscle soreness and enhancing muscle recovery and this reduction in muscle soreness seemed to enhance the workout performance of the subjects in their next workouts so how exactly can you apply this well I’d suggest foam rolling after your workout for around 10 minutes or so and stick the muscles you work that day especially the ones that tend to experience the most soreness you can also do the foam roll in a few hours after your workout if that’s more convenient for you as for how to properly for morale I’ll save that topic for another video for now just focus on not going over a muscle too quickly and for really tight areas keep the pressure on it until you feel it release and if you’re looking to purchase a foam roller I’ll leave a few links to some of my personal suggestions in the description box down below another thing you can do to reduce muscle soreness is incorporate active recovery which includes cooldowns low intensity exercise and so on again not many studies have looked into this but the few studies that have found that active recovery either performed immediately after a workout or within the days following the workout reduced muscle soreness more than when no active recovery was used so in order to implement this I suggest performing 5 to 10 minutes of active recovery or cool down after your workout especially for leg workouts this can be done after your formal and if you’re going to do that as well but the most important part when it comes to active recovery is to use a low intensity exercise that involves the muscles you worked for example low intensity cycling would be ideal after a leg day whereas something like rowing or swimming would be ideal after an upper body day or arm day now although there’s several supplements out there that claim to enhance muscle recovery and reduce muscle soreness the truth is research is relatively inconclusive when it comes to this however the research behind Omega threes is promising now only have Omega 3 has been recently shown to improve anabolic signaling which may improve muscle repair and growth but multiple other studies have shown that supplementation of around 1 to 3 grams per day of Omega 3s significantly reduces muscle soreness following resistance training exercise so taking a few high quality Omega 3 fish oil pills daily and increasing your fish intake can be another viable way of reducing muscle soreness and improving overall recovery and as for other supplements ingesting caffeine prior to your workout has been and two recent studies to significantly reduce post-workout muscle soreness however the catch is that both studies used a dosage of around 400 milligrams of caffeine which is the equivalent of around four cups of coffee simply meaning that’s just not feasible for someone to implement this protocol on a daily basis but with that being said some other supplements that have for the most part shown a positive effect on muscle soreness and may be of interest to some of you our taurine l-citrulline and l-glutamine as I’ve mentioned in my other muscle soreness video using your way into a program is the one thing you can do that will have the biggest effect on reducing your muscle soreness if you’re a beginner or D trained or just starting a new exercise routine the best thing for you to do is to take a few weeks to ease into your program meaning that you should work at volumes and intensities that are lower than you normally would in order to prevent excessive soreness from occurring so to some of the video in order to minimize muscle soreness and enhance muscle recovery foam well after your workout for 10 minutes or so with a focus on the muscles you work that day perform active recovery after your foam rolling as well or the day after your workout again with a focus being on the muscles that you worked increase your omega-3 intake to roughly 1 to 3 grams per day from high-quality sources and finally ease into your program by gradually building up the volume and intensity of your workouts that’s pretty much it for the video guys thank you so much for watching I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful as always I’ve posted a written summary of this video on my website built with science comm so for those interested in reading it I’ll leave a link to it in the description box down below I’d also really appreciate it if you guys gave me a follow on Instagram and Facebook as well where I try to post a lot of informative content on a more regular basis so I’ll leave links to both of those in the description box down below as well and I’m currently trying to plan my videos for the next couple months so let me know in the comments what kind of content you’d like to see going forward I’m definitely gonna cover some science-based nutrition videos for muscle growth and fat loss but let me know if there’s anything else you think the majority of you would find interesting I think maybe so doing a science-based bodyweight workout series would be pretty interesting but let me know if that’s something you guys would find useful anyways as always surety support for this video by giving it a like leaving a comment down below and subscribe to my channel if you haven’t already I really appreciate all your support guys and I’ll see you next time [Music]
