Relieve Aches and Pains: What to do and What Not to Do to Recover Well
Relieve Aches and Pains: What to do and What Not to Do to Recover Well
How to relieve aches? This is a common question, but in the end, chances are you do not really know what to do and what not to do to recover well and get better. In this article, I will first explain to you that what is stiffness, how they appear and what are the means of prevention or fight against them. Then you will know the strategy to relieve aches but especially what not to do!
Aches? What Is It?
When you make a muscular effort of unusual intensity, during a new exercise, a new sport or a new gesture, you will surely wake up the next morning with aches. They can also appear during a viral infection with most often fever. They are therefore defined as muscle pain occurring within 24 to 48 hours after intense physical exercise and can last up to a week.
The First Stage of Muscle “Injury”
This muscle pain actually corresponds to real muscle damage. Rest assured, these are tiny injuries of muscle fibers that are absolutely not dangerous but that proves that the muscle is damaged and needs rest to rebuild itself. Their mechanism of appearance is not clearly identified. We just know that they are the result of 6 mechanisms that accumulate with each other: lactic acid accumulation, muscle tension, microtrauma of the tissue surrounding the muscle and muscle by itself, inflammation and flow of enzyme.
A Curved Muscle is a Weakened Muscle
The impact of aches on performance is real. The effects on the muscle make it less strong and especially more fragile. You may notice a reduction in the range of motion, a difficulty in absorbing shocks, and a less responsive muscle, less strong and less powerful. All this causes an unusual strain on your joints, tendons, ligaments, and muscles. All these structures are therefore weakened.
Your Achy Muscles Need Rest
Aches are often too neglected. If they exist, they hurt and limit movement; it is to convey a clear message that your body needs rest. Thus, a first great principle is to remember: never force like a monster on it and use the coldest ice pack to relax muscles and remove pain.
Be careful to differentiate aches and muscle fatigue. In the second case, you feel deep burns in your muscles, due to the making of lactic acid (muscle waste). In this situation, you shouldn’t have any worry, you can force, and you can even see the disappearance of this sensation.
Now you know what are aches and the first response should have the rest. But there are other solutions to relieve aches. This is what we will explain in the next article.
Prevention of Aches:
Prevention is better than cure, says the proverb. This is valid in all areas of health. To relieve muscle aches, the basic rule is to stay progressive in starting any new physical activities or training programs. In some sports, bodybuilding, in particular, the curvature is sought and is a guarantee of future muscle mass production. For other sports, stay logical and gradually increase workloads as well as intensity. Aches also remain uncomfortable in sports worn (swimming, cycling, rowing …) where the body does not undergo shock to counter gravity. You will simply be less successful sometime.
When you start a new activity, calculate the total time you want to spend on a full session in the future. For your first start, you spend 1/4 or 1/3 of the total time, no more. Again, be progressive, especially for sports where everybody is racing. For others, exhaustion will surely stop before you.
In addition to this concept, remember to hydrate yourself before, during and after the effort, when you can consume water rich in minerals (magnesium, bicarbonate, sodium …) kept in an insulated coldest water bottle. Consider that a normal person needs to drink 1.5 liters of water in a day, so do not be below this consumption. If you are sporting than your water intake should be higher. Finally, choose a diet that must be rich in nutrients and antioxidants mainly to repair the damage! That means looking at vegetables, fruits, legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and spices.
