how can i prevent or decrease muscle soreness, especially after a leg workout? thanks
do more frequent workouts and the same exercises.
Do them more often. Lighter workouts between your heavy workouts will improve your conditioning and reduce soreness.
When you first start out there’s not much you can do to get around the muscle soreness, simply because you’re body isn’t used to being worked that way.
But once you’ve gotten past the first few weeks the soreness should be much less after workouts. I found that making sure I was getting enough protein in my diet made a big difference as well. If you don’t give your body the nutrients it needs to repair the soreness will last much longer. Also if you do an article search for “Recovery” on this site there’s a good one by CT with a number of different recovery techniques.
Eat and sleep more.
make sure you get some high glycemic carbs eg. glucose/dextrose drink sraight after your workout, i mean within 20 mins if you aren’t already. makes a big difference. then make sure you get some more slower release carbs and protein within an hour. really helps with recovery.
when I first started I took 1 scoop of glutamine with my post work-out shake. That will reduce soreness for sure
Get used to the workout. A nice contrast bath (switching back and forth in cold and warm water) would also help.
You cannot outright prevent soreness, but you can decrease the amount of time that you are sore.
Waterbury recommends taking two styrofoam cups, filling them with water and placing them in the freezer (you can do it overnight). After you come home from the gym, take the cups out and rip off the first inch to inch and a half from the bottom, so the ice is cone shaped and exposed. For the pecs, he recommends using one cup per side. I would assume that remains true for leg muscles since they are so large.
Use each cup for about 1-2 minutes, periodically taking them off the skin so you don’t get a freezer burn.
That, and foam rolling the next day will help.
By far the best advice? Do very light cardio the next day to get blood flow to the area and, most importantly, work the ANTAGONIST of the muscles that are sore on your next workout day. THAT helped me big time, and I just got back into the gym.
a ton of BCAA’s and glutamine, no other supplements can help as much.
I like to use quad, hamstring and glute stretches when the DOMS is particularly kicking my ass (literally and figuratively).
I also do some low intensity cardio (stationary bike) as well as body weight squats.
Of course, as everyone already mentioned, it’s mostly all about getting used to the exercises.
take Flameout of course.