What causes sore muscles?

It’s normal to feel a little sore and stiff after exercise. It’s a symptom of the process that strengthens your muscles. When you exercise, your muscles experience tiny amounts of damage. These micro tears are actually what increase your strength: as they heal they build your muscles up. Think of your muscles as a piece of string. Exercise is like cutting the string in two pieces; recovery is like tying the two pieces of string back together in a knot: it makes it stronger and also builds it up. The soreness you feel after exercise is the process of building up those tears.

Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) is when your muscles feel gradually stiffer over the 24 to 48 hours after exercise. It’s also completely normal. It’s a symptom that you’ve worked a muscle, or muscles, beyond the intensity to which they are accustomed. It’s important to know, when you’re starting a new exercise routine or increasing intensity to train for an event, that this may happen; and not to be intimidated by it.

The trick is to know the difference between normal muscle soreness and pain from injury. Take time to rest and recover and to let your muscles repair themselves. Once your muscles have repaired, there should be no more pain. In addition, you may be able to engage in a very low intensity workout or active recovery while recovering. It can even help you feel better as long as your workout is not too strenuous.

Recovering from normal muscle soreness after exercise

The first way to treat sore muscles is to rest. But there are some other things you can do to speed up recovery:

• Ice. Applying cold to the sore areas can help to reduce the inflammation caused by the process of repairing your muscles. This can help speed up recovery and reduce the pain. 
• Anti-inflammatories. Over-the-counter anti-inflammatory medicines can also help to reduce the pain and speed up recovery. This may not be necessary though, and avoid using them too often. 
• Massage. A physiotherapist can help to loosen the muscle tissues and encourage blood flow to the sore areas. It can also help you to determine whether you’re suffering from normal exercise-related soreness or an injury. 
• Heat. Applying heat helps the blood to circulate around the affected area and improve recovery time. A sauna or steam room can help with this. 
• Stretching. After any workout, stretch thoroughly. This helps to break the cycle of soreness, spasm, contraction, and tightness.

If you do experience muscle soreness after training, try to reduce your training intensity next time to avoid the same soreness. Build up slowly to condition your muscles and increase fitness gradually.