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How to ease your leg pain? Following a strenuous session at the gym working the legs, it’s not uncommon to be super sore afterward. If you haven’t done a leg workout in some time, you can even be borderline unable to walk. Fortunately, there are different ways to ease your leg pain after the exercises. These techniques will alleviate the pain and speed up your recovery process.
How to Ease Your Leg Pain
A few simple stretches, albeit painful themselves, can help blood circulate into the leg and break up some of that stiffness. You do want to take it slow and not overdo any physical activities. Even just getting up and sitting back down can help get the legs moving. It will at least help at a functional level.
Movement is essential when it comes to muscle pain, sore muscles, and muscle recovery. The more you move, the better. If you wake up the next day with leg pain after a workout, don’t panic. Just start slowly moving. Your muscles should activate, and it’ll get a little easier. However, if the condition gets any worse, don’t hesitate to visit a physiotherapy clinic for treatment.
Here are more tips on how to ease your leg pain after a workout:
Muscle Massage
A great way to get the blood going in the legs is a quick muscle massage. Press down into the muscle, move around in a slow circle, and ease some of that pain out. Then, release. Repeat downward across the leg muscle.
You may choose to use a massage gun or electric massage to do this work. That’s perfectly alright. A massage more or less will do the same thing as stretching, except it will dig deeper into the muscle. You may be able to get more out of it. It is also a preventative strategy you can use to relax the muscle and hopefully avoid some of that pain.
Cold Compress
A bag of ice can be extremely helpful in bringing down any swelling or inflammation. This isn’t problematic for everyone, but inflammation can be a bad thing when it comes to pain. It will intensify the pain, filling your body with discomfort.
When you apply a cold compress, you bring down inflammation and reduce the pain you are going through. What many people end up doing is applying something hot and removing it. Then, you place something cold and remove it. This sort of hot-cold therapy can help with pain as well as heat does something important.
Heat Treatment
Heat increases blood flow to the muscles. The heat helps to get that healing going. A simple heat pad can do the trick. Similarly, a hot water bottle helps as well. When you alternate between heat and cold treatments, this process will help you reduce the pain and heal the muscle.
You may not necessarily feel the full impact of this process at the moment. However, the next day you may notice a considerable difference in the amount of pain in your legs. Hot-cold therapy works on a lot of athletes and, fortunately, it’s very cheap.
Over-The-Counter Pain Medications
We wouldn’t recommend taking OTC pain medications unless the pain warrants it. The thing about pharmaceuticals is they can very easily become a habit. Ibuprofen is an anti-inflammatory. If you have to take one, ibuprofen is probably it.
With that said, you also have supplements like magnesium that you can take at bedtime. It helps relax your leg muscles and lets them heal. That’s a lot safer than using any sort of chemical-based pain medicine. If it’s seriously needed, OTC pain medicine is an option.
Topical Creams and Gels
There are lots of topical creams and gels over-the-counter that can help with muscle massages and the like. Any IcyHot, Aspercreme, Voltaren, or anything like that will work. What tends to work better are creams containing menthol or capsaicin, both of which are scientifically proven to ease muscle soreness.
A lot of people also use CBD creams, which tap into the healing aspects of cannabis. It targets the muscle, helping to relieve leg pain after a workout in this way.
Drink Water, Eat Meals
When your legs are extremely sore, ensure you’re getting a lot of water and that you’re eating healthily. You want to give your body everything it needs to repair itself while you rest your muscles. Water is especially important for muscle recovery. Always keep your body hydrated. The recommended amount of water consumption is around eight glasses per day. Aim for this doable target.
Some people new to working out or diets have a habit of restricting what they eat. While advantageous in some ways, a diet may slow down your muscle recovery process. Limiting your nutritional intake could extend the time you are uncomfortable with leg pain. That’s because your body does not get the protein it needs for recovery.
Instead, aim to enrich your body with nutritious meals. You should try to eat healthy meals that cover the essential vitamin groups. Fruits and vegetables are excellent ideas to include in your healthy meals. In addition, stay away from junk foods that will detract from the nutritional value of your diet. The same goes for unhealthy beverages like sodas or alcohol, which should be minimized as much as possible.
Take a Hot Bath
Is your body sore after working out? If so, put yourself in a hot, relaxing environment, like a bath. It will help muscles let go, relax, and start to heal. The warm bath will also ease some of the stress elsewhere in the body. Plus, a bath is relaxing and will soothe you mentally as well.
Another benefit of warm baths is that they will heal your entire body. You may not realize it, but you may have pain in your lower back. You may also experience other forms of stress, which you release through a warm bath. Spend 20-30 minutes to yourself to eliminate some of that soreness. After the math, it will make a positive difference in your ability to function.
