Exercises and Stretching

How do I avoid prolonged muscle soreness? What can I do to help myself recover from the muscle damage done by an intense workout? Can I exercise to recover from an injury?

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What You SHOULD Do

Proper Rest

Adequate rest between sessions is key. Several studies have shown that rest is important to promote recovery, strength development, and overall health. It is also recommended to prevent Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (Zeng, et al., 2022). Finding the right amount of rest for your body takes time, but it's important to be aware of how your sleep impacts your life.

Effective Programming

As any certified trainer or coach will tell you, a good program is infinitely valuable for getting the best results on a consistent basis. Working hard each week without overdoing it will build your overall fitness without increasing risk for injury or prolonged soreness. If a workout has you sore more than 24 hours later, you may need to adjust your planning.

Active Recovery Days

On off days, passive stretching and mobility-focused exercises that do not tax the muscles or joints heavily are a great way to promote recovery and improve flexibility, reducing future injury risk. Foam rolling and other muscle release techniques are also helpful. With as little as 60 seconds of pressure, tight muscles can begin to release and show improvements.

What You (Maybe) Shouldn't Do

This may come as a surprise, but cooldown exercises and passive stretching at the end of a workout have been shown by multiple studies and analyses to be mostly ineffective at assisting in the recovery of damaged muscle tissue (Van Hooren, Peake, 2018). The most obvious benefit seen from these studies is an improvement in heart rate recovery, but this may affect other parts of the recovery process. While the cooldown has long been touted as essential for recovery and longevity, it has been shown in recent years not to have as strong of an effect and may be altogether unnecessary(West, et al., 2011)

References

Cong Zeng, Ge Luo, Shijun Xu, Yi Li, "The Application of DOMS Mechanism and

Prevention in Physical Education and Training", Journal of Healthcare Engineering, vol. 2022, Article ID 9654919, 5 pages, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/9654919

Van Hooren, B., Peake, J.M. Do We Need a Cool-Down After Exercise? A Narrative

Review of the Psychophysiological Effects and the Effects on Performance, Injuries and the Long-Term Adaptive Response. Sports Med 48, 1575–1595 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-018-0916-2

West, A., La Bounty, P., Stanford, M. S., Greenwood, M., & Cooke, M. (2011).

COMPARISON OF POST-EXERCISE RECOVERY METHODS ON PERFORMANCE MARKERS, LATATE AND PSYCOHOLOGICAL MOOD STATES ELICITED BY ENDURANCE CYCLING. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, Suppl.Supplement 1, 25, 1. doi:https://doi.org/10.1097/01.JSC.0000395719.07117.85