A workout stresses your muscles, forcing them to work harder than usual; in response to the stress and strain, they sustain microdamage --- minute tears in the muscle tissue. As your body repairs these tears, your muscles strengthen. Soreness from exercise usually occurs the day after a workout, and it may increase over the next couple days; experts call this phenomenon delayed onset muscle soreness.
First Ice, Then Heat
If you feel only minor soreness, which commonly occurs after exercising, you may not need any treatment. If your muscles feel particularly sore because you overused, strained or worked them intensely for a long time, you should not use heat to treat the pain --- at least at first. Instead, apply ice or a cold pack for the first one to three days of pain. If your muscles still hurt after two or three days, then switch to applying heat.
How Ice Helps
Although heat may feel soothing for a moment, it doesn't help your muscles repair themselves, applying it first doesn't provide significant pain relief, and it doesn't address the causes of your soreness. Applying ice or something cold, on the other hand, eases pain quickly by numbing the tissue, which limits how much of the soreness you actually feel. Further, coldness helps reduce inflammation, swelling and intramuscular bleeding; these problems may occur after an intense workout, and they cause a large portion of your pain.
How Heat Helps
Applying heat a few days after the workout helps your muscles repair themselves. The heat stimulates blood flow in the area by expanding your blood vessels, allowing more blood to flow to the sore area. The blood brings essential nutrients that your body uses to repair the muscle tissue's microscopic tears. Additionally, the heat helps relax any stiffness in your muscles.
Other Treatments
Although applying ice and then heat offers significant comfort and assistance to sore muscles, you can try other remedies as well. Over-the-counter painkillers, such as ibuprofen, naproxen or aspirin, can ease your pain and help reduce inflammation. If you experience minor soreness from a normal workout, you can continue your daily activities as usual. If you experience moderate or severe pain from straining or injuring your muscles during a workout, rest the sore muscles as much as possible. Get sufficient sleep every night. Stretching or yoga can relax your sore muscles, stimulate blood flow to the sore area and help you sleep at night despite the soreness.
Warnings
Muscle injury differs from the benign delayed onset muscle soreness that usually results from working out. If you experience severe pain that is not a normal effect of exercise, then see a physician. If the soreness from one workout lasts for four days, if the area becomes infected or if you start experiencing poor circulation, call your doctor. If you cannot move the sore muscle, call 911. When applying heat to your muscles, never apply the heating element directly; to avoid skin burns, wrap the heating element in a cloth or apply it over your clothes.
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