How to Reduce Muscle Soreness after Yoga or Working out

Share Tweet SubscribeMy top four tips to reduce soreness after a physical yoga practice (or post-workout in general): 1) Work out regularly / Practice yoga dailyIf your legs hurt too much to climb stairs today, you are probably thinking “not fair! too late!” about this tip. The truth sometimes hurts (pun intended), but daily practice (yoga, or activity in general), with variety, is THE Best Way to Prevent soreness. The more regularly you work out in general, the more prepared your body will be to handle working out more. It’s a catch 22, so if the prospect of being sore stops you from exercising, know that you can start out on the path to a committed, regular exercise routine gently. (A home yoga practice is great for many reasons, my favorite being that it meets you exactly as you are that day.) 2) Stay hydrated and fed (include essential electrolytes)If you are dehydrated before a workout, your body will have to put forth much more effort to maintain homeostasis, including a steady internal temperature, therefore your movements will be much less efficient. Muscular effort also creates waste products that need to be flushed out via urine or sweat. Electrolytes are something to consider replacing if your workout will last more than one hour (amazing coconut water powder exists!) or if your nutrition is sub-optimal (don’t let it be! lack of protein can also increase muscle soreness, so eat before or after). 3) Keep movingThe worst thing you can do when you feel post-workout soreness come on is to heed the call of the couch…to stop moving completely. Walk as much as possible, stretch, get on a bike to slowly weave around your neighborhood and take the stairs instead of the elevator. Heck, maybe even go for a run (see above). Circulation is the body’s mechanism for transporting healing factors to the parts that need it most. 4) MassageLike movement, there is a mounting body of evidence that massage helps to increase circulation and transport inflammatory markers out of the muscles and anti-inflammatory goodness back in. You might not be able to drop $60-100 cash (+ don’t forget to tip) for every workout, especially if you follow my above advice about frequency, but you can probably afford a $15 foam roller or a $30 Theracane. These self massage tools are a common part of the home exercise prescriptions I give my physical therapy patients — for good reason. They work. (You can also come to one of my amazing Way of the Happy Fascia workshops, where I teach you how to roll on tennis balls to work out kinks throughout your body). Finally, know that a little (non-debilitating) soreness is GOOD! It often means you’ve used a muscle in a way it hasn’t been engaged in a while, or that you’ve played at the edge of your capacity. Powerful athletes can be sore after a moderate yoga class, for example. Varying the types of physical activities you do increases your general stability, decreases your risk of injury. So if you don’t get sore at all, amp up the effort. In yoga, that’s stira, the steadiness, like an uphill climb, with the sukha, or sweet ease of knowing when enough is enough. THE best kind of muscle soreness? the kind you get on yoga retreats :). Yes, I’m biased. Join me in Lake Atitlan, Guatemala in Feb 2015 (President’s Day week)or the Appalachian Mountains of Maryland over Memorial Day weekend — for two yoga classes a day and the rest and restoration that your body-mind-spirit surely needs.Have friends who could benefit from figuring this stuff out? I’ve made it ultra easy to share via Tweet! What would you add to this conversation? Hope to read about it in the comments below or over at Facebook.com/SacredSourceYoga!Can’t wait to connect! xo, Ariele

…

Did you find this article helpful? Let’s stay in touch! Subscribe to my (once or twice monthly) newsletter for links to fresh blog posts like this one – covering the best of yoga, optimal health, yoga anatomy, physical therapy and the occasional recipe – PLUS amazing upcoming events, like my retreats and yoga anatomy trainings.

Originally published-08/15/2013

Categories: Anatomy and Alignment