Most muscle soreness after exercise peaks between 24 and 48 hours later and resolves on its own within about five days. The discomfort comes from inflammation in the connective tissue surrounding your muscle fibers, not from the muscle cells themselves being torn apart. That inflammation is actually part of the repair process, so the goal isn’t to eliminate it entirely. It’s to manage the pain, support recovery, and get back to training faster.
What’s Actually Happening in Sore Muscles
When you push your muscles harder than they’re used to, especially during movements where the muscle lengthens under load (think: lowering a heavy weight, running downhill, or the lowering phase of a squat), you create small-scale disruption in the tissue. Your body responds by sending inflammatory signals to the area, which trigger the repair and remodeling process that ultimately makes the muscle stronger.
Those same inflammatory molecules stimulate pain receptors in and around the muscle, producing the tenderness and stiffness you feel the next day or two. This is delayed onset muscle soreness, commonly called DOMS. It’s most intense when you’re new to an exercise or returning after a break, and it diminishes as your body adapts to repeated training.
Move Lightly on Rest Days
Complete rest isn’t your best option when you’re sore. Light activity that raises your heart rate without loading the sore muscles helps increase blood flow to the damaged tissue. Walking, easy cycling, swimming, or using an elliptical all work well. The key is to avoid the same repetitive movements that caused the soreness in the first place, and to keep the intensity genuinely low.
If you normally lift weights, try using 30 to 40 percent less weight than usual during an active recovery session. You’re not trying to get a training effect. You’re just promoting circulation. That said, you still need at least one full rest day per week. If you train at high intensity, scheduling a complete rest day every seven to ten days is a common recommendation, though some people benefit from two rest days per week.
Cold and Hot Water Immersion
Both cold and hot baths can help with soreness, though they work differently. Cold water immersion (around 59°F or 15°C) reduces swelling and can numb pain in the short term. Hot water immersion (around 104°F or 40°C) increases blood flow and may be better for maintaining exercise performance in subsequent sessions. Research from the American Physiological Society found that hot water immersion after high-intensity interval running was more effective than cold water for preserving performance.
If you prefer ice baths, 10 to 15 minutes is a typical duration. For hot baths or soaks, similar timeframes work. Neither approach will dramatically shorten your recovery, but both can make the 48-hour peak of soreness more manageable.
Compression Garments
Wearing compression sleeves or tights after a hard workout can reduce perceived soreness, but duration matters. A study in Apunts Sports Medicine found that wearing a compression sleeve for just 12 hours wasn’t enough to improve recovery from exercise-induced muscle damage. In studies where compression did help, participants wore the garments for 72 to 120 hours after the damaging exercise. If you’re going to use compression, plan to wear it for several days rather than just overnight.
Protein Timing and Amount
Your muscles need protein to rebuild. The amount that maximizes muscle protein synthesis after resistance exercise is roughly 0.31 grams per kilogram of body weight per meal. For a 160-pound (73 kg) person, that’s about 23 grams of protein in the post-workout meal. To support whole-body recovery more broadly, the target rises to at least 0.5 grams per kilogram, or about 36 grams for the same person.
You don’t need to slam a protein shake within minutes of finishing your last set. What matters more is hitting adequate protein across the day, with a solid serving in the meal closest to your workout. High-quality sources like eggs, dairy, meat, fish, or a whey protein supplement all deliver the amino acids your muscles need for repair.
Tart Cherry Juice and Anti-Inflammatory Foods
Tart cherry juice is one of the few food-based remedies with consistent research behind it. Drinking 240 mL (about 8 ounces) twice daily for roughly eight to ten days around a hard training bout has been shown to reduce muscle soreness, decrease markers of inflammation, and help preserve strength. The effect comes from the concentrated plant compounds in tart cherries that act as natural anti-inflammatories and antioxidants.
Whole sweet cherries (about 280 grams per day, roughly 45 cherries) have also been shown to reduce C-reactive protein, a key marker of inflammation. Curcumin, the active compound in turmeric, is another popular option, though the research on specific doses for soreness is less well established than it is for cherries.
Stay Hydrated
Dehydration likely makes muscle soreness worse. While research in this area is still limited, one key study found that people who were dehydrated before doing downhill running reported greater pain and tenderness from DOMS compared to those who were adequately hydrated. During exercise, the splitting of energy compounds and shifts in electrolyte balance increase the concentration of solutes inside muscle fibers, causing them to swell. Starting a workout already dehydrated may amplify this process and the resulting damage.
You don’t need a specific electrolyte formula for routine soreness. Drinking enough water throughout the day and replacing fluids lost during exercise is the practical takeaway. If you’re training in heat or sweating heavily, adding electrolytes through a sports drink or food sources (bananas, salted snacks, coconut water) can help maintain the mineral balance your muscles rely on to contract and relax properly.
Painkillers: They Work, With a Caveat
Over-the-counter anti-inflammatories like ibuprofen will reduce soreness, but there’s a tradeoff worth knowing about. An eight-week study in the Journal of Applied Physiology found that daily ibuprofen use (1,200 mg per day) didn’t significantly affect muscle fiber size, satellite cell activity, or the molecular signals that drive muscle growth at the cellular level. However, other research has linked regular ibuprofen use during training to reduced overall muscle hypertrophy in young adults, even if the exact mechanism isn’t fully explained by the usual growth pathways.
The practical lesson: using ibuprofen occasionally for a particularly rough bout of soreness is unlikely to derail your progress. Using it daily as a routine part of your training is a different story, and probably not worth the risk to your stomach lining either.
When Soreness Is Something More Serious
Normal DOMS is uncomfortable but manageable, and it improves each day after the 48-hour peak. Rhabdomyolysis is a rare but dangerous condition where muscle tissue breaks down so severely that it releases proteins into the bloodstream that can damage the kidneys. The warning signs, according to the CDC, are distinct from regular soreness:
- Dark urine that looks tea- or cola-colored
- Pain far more severe than you’d expect from the workout you did
- Unusual weakness or fatigue, such as being unable to complete tasks you’d normally handle easily
These symptoms can appear hours or even days after the workout. They’re most common after extreme or unfamiliar exercise, especially in hot conditions or when someone is deconditioned and pushes too hard. If your urine turns dark or the pain feels disproportionate to what you did, that needs immediate medical attention.