Even if you train regularly, surely you have ever felt the muscle pain produced after an intensive workout. This type of pain is known as shoelaces.
The soreness appears when the muscle suffers tiny tears. These help build muscle fiber making it stronger. So shoelaces are not an excuse not to exercise the next day. It is best to carry out an adequate stretching routine to minimize the consequences of intense training.
What to do if you have shoelaces?
- Do not medicate before a workout. So you can understand and notice how the body reacts to a workout. If you medicate sooner, you could put more pressure on your body than you should, or even mask an injury until it’s too late.
If you have soreness, what you can do is take an anti-inflammatory after training.
- Evaluate the pain. Having shoelaces is good. But if you finish a workout and feel like you’re sore, continuing to push yourself isn’t the best thing to do. If you have started to exercise, it is normal to have muscle pain. However, when exercise pain feels more like a burning sensation, it means you need to stop.
- To avoid having to stop exercising, you can slow down your training and you can choose to perform aerobic exercises or do yoga. Both cardio and stretching calm the muscles and help your muscles recover faster.
Be sure to pay attention to the difference between injury pain and normal muscle pain, and stop and rest if you think you’ve overstrained a muscle.
- Take protein. Muscles are made of protein, so if you try to eat some type of protein right after you work out, you’ll help the muscle heal faster and build more muscle.
- Alternate workouts. In case you have soreness in one part of the body, you can exercise another area. That is, if you have soreness in your legs, the ideal exercises will be those that focus on the arms and abdomen. It is a good way to optimize time: while the sore part rests, you work another part of the body without stopping training.
If you have soreness, don’t sit still and keep training. If the pain does not improve, see a doctor.
