You can significantly reduce post-workout soreness by cooling down properly, staying hydrated, eating enough protein, and increasing your training intensity gradually. The soreness you feel a day or two after exercise, known as delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), comes from tiny tears in your muscle fibers that trigger inflammation as your body repairs them. It typically peaks one to three days after your workout, and while you can’t eliminate it entirely when you push into new territory, the strategies below can make a real difference in how much it slows you down.
Why Your Muscles Get Sore in the First Place
Your muscles are made of thousands of tiny fibers that stretch and contract as you move. When you do something your body isn’t used to, whether that’s heavier weight, more reps, or a new exercise, some of those fibers sustain microscopic tears. This isn’t a bad thing. It’s actually the stimulus your body needs to rebuild those fibers stronger than before. But the repair process involves inflammation, swelling, and increased sensitivity in the damaged tissue, which is what you feel as stiffness and tenderness the next morning.
The “delayed” part matters. Unlike the burning sensation you feel mid-set (which is mostly from metabolic byproducts), DOMS doesn’t show up until hours later and tends to peak around 24 to 72 hours post-exercise. That lag catches a lot of people off guard, especially when a workout felt fine in the moment but leaves them hobbling two days later. The good news: your body adapts quickly. The same workout that left you wrecked the first time will produce far less soreness after just a few exposures, even at the same intensity.
Cool Down With Light Movement
One of the simplest things you can do is spend six to ten minutes cooling down right after your workout with light activity at about 50 to 60 percent of your max effort. That could be a slow jog, easy cycling, or walking. Research shows this kind of active recovery increases blood flow to your muscles, flushing out cellular byproducts of exercise and helping your muscles return to their normal state faster. It also reduces markers of inflammation and muscle breakdown compared to just stopping cold.
The same principle applies on your rest days. Light movement like walking, swimming, or gentle yoga keeps blood circulating through sore tissue without adding further damage. Sitting still all day when you’re sore feels protective, but it tends to make stiffness worse.
Increase Training Gradually
The single best way to prevent severe soreness is to avoid doing too much too soon. A good rule of thumb: increase your weight, distance, or training volume by no more than 10 percent per week. So if you squatted 100 pounds this week, move to 110 next week, not 130. If you ran 15 miles total, bump it to 16 or 17, not 20.
This applies to new exercises too. The first time you do Bulgarian split squats or box jumps, your muscles have zero adaptation to that specific movement pattern. Start with fewer sets and lighter loads than you think you need. You can always add more next session once you know how your body responds. Eccentric movements (where the muscle lengthens under load, like lowering into a squat or running downhill) are especially notorious for causing soreness, so be conservative when introducing them.
Prioritize Protein and Hydration
Your muscles need amino acids from protein to repair those micro-tears. Aim to eat a protein-rich meal or snack within a couple hours after training. You don’t need a precise “anabolic window,” but consistently eating enough protein throughout the day (roughly 0.7 to 1 gram per pound of body weight) gives your body the raw materials it needs for faster recovery.
Hydration matters too, though the research is nuanced. Studies have shown that exercising in a dehydrated state can amplify both the pain and tenderness of DOMS. One key study found that when participants were dehydrated through fluid restriction and heat stress before exercise, their soreness symptoms were significantly worse. Drinking enough water before, during, and after your workout won’t magically prevent soreness, but letting yourself get dehydrated makes the situation measurably worse.
Try Cold Therapy
Cold exposure reduces pain and inflammation, which is why ice baths have become a popular recovery tool. The recommended water temperature for cold immersion is between 39 and 59°F (4 to 15°C), and you only need one to five minutes to get the benefit. You don’t need to suffer through a 20-minute ice bath. Even a brief dip or a cold shower focused on the muscles you trained can help take the edge off.
One caveat: if your primary goal is building muscle size and strength, frequent cold immersion right after training may slightly blunt the inflammatory signals your body uses to adapt and grow. For most recreational exercisers, this tradeoff is negligible. But if you’re training hard for hypertrophy, you might save ice baths for particularly brutal sessions rather than making them a daily habit.
Supplements That Help
Two supplements have decent evidence behind them for soreness specifically: magnesium and tart cherry juice.
Magnesium helps your muscles relax and reduces inflammation. The most commonly studied dose for active adults is 300 to 500 milligrams per day. Athletes training intensely may benefit from a higher, weight-based dose of around 4 to 6 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. Not all forms are equal. Magnesium glycinate is well-absorbed and gentle on the stomach (it also has a calming effect that can improve sleep, which itself aids recovery). Magnesium malate supports cellular energy production, making it a good fit for high training loads. Magnesium citrate is cheap and well-absorbed, though higher doses can cause loose stools. Avoid magnesium oxide and sulfate, which your body absorbs poorly.
Tart cherry juice contains natural compounds that act as anti-inflammatories. The standard protocol in research is 30 milliliters of concentrate (about two tablespoons) twice daily, starting three to seven days before intense exercise and continuing for two to four days after. That’s a longer commitment than most people expect, but the effect builds over time. If you’re using regular tart cherry juice instead of concentrate, the doses studied are about 8 to 12 ounces twice per day.
Over-the-Counter Pain Relief
Anti-inflammatory painkillers like ibuprofen and naproxen, along with acetaminophen, can reduce soreness and make you more comfortable. They work well for occasional use after a particularly tough workout. However, relying on them routinely isn’t ideal. Like cold therapy, anti-inflammatories may interfere with the adaptive processes you’re trying to trigger through training, and regular use comes with its own side effects on your stomach, kidneys, and liver.
When Soreness Is a Warning Sign
Normal DOMS is uncomfortable but manageable. It makes you stiff and tender, but it improves steadily over a few days. Rhabdomyolysis is a rare but serious condition where muscle tissue breaks down so severely that it releases proteins into your bloodstream that can damage your kidneys. The CDC identifies three key warning signs that distinguish it from ordinary soreness:
- Pain that’s more severe than expected for the workout you did
- Dark urine that looks tea- or cola-colored
- Unusual weakness or fatigue, like being unable to complete tasks you’d normally handle easily
These symptoms can appear hours to days after the initial muscle injury, and they can mimic heat cramps or dehydration. If your soreness feels extreme relative to what you did, especially combined with dark urine, that’s worth getting checked out promptly. Rhabdomyolysis is most common after very high-rep workouts you aren’t conditioned for, extreme heat exposure, or returning to intense exercise after a long break.