The best things to take for sore muscles after a workout include tart cherry juice, fish oil, curcumin, magnesium, and adequate protein and fluids. Over-the-counter painkillers like ibuprofen work in the short term but can actually slow your muscle growth if you use them regularly. Most post-workout soreness, known as delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), peaks 24 to 72 hours after exercise and resolves on its own, but the right supplements and nutrition can reduce how intense it gets and how long it lasts.
Why Your Muscles Get Sore After Exercise
When you push your muscles harder than they’re used to, especially during movements where the muscle lengthens under load (like lowering a weight, running downhill, or the down phase of a squat), you create microscopic damage in the muscle fibers. Your body responds with inflammation to repair that damage, which is what causes the stiffness, tenderness, and reduced range of motion you feel the next day or two. This process is actually how muscles grow back stronger, so the goal isn’t to eliminate soreness entirely. It’s to manage it enough that you can recover well and train again.
Tart Cherry Juice
Tart cherry juice is one of the most studied natural remedies for exercise-related soreness. The pigments that give Montmorency cherries their deep red color act as potent anti-inflammatory and antioxidant compounds in the body, helping to reduce the inflammation that drives DOMS.
The catch is that you need to start drinking it before you exercise, not just after. The most common protocol in clinical trials is two servings per day for several days before intense exercise and continuing for a couple of days afterward. If you’re using juice made from fresh-frozen cherries, that’s about 8 to 12 ounces per serving. If you’re using a concentrate, 30 ml (roughly one ounce) twice a day appears to be enough. Interestingly, doubling the concentrate dose to 60 ml per day didn’t produce better results, so more isn’t necessarily better here.
Fish Oil
Fish oil supplements containing omega-3 fatty acids can meaningfully reduce how sore you feel after hard training. The fatty acids in fish oil interfere with your body’s production of inflammatory signaling molecules, dialing down the pain response without blocking the repair process the way drugs do.
Dose matters a lot. A study testing different amounts found that 6 grams of fish oil per day, providing 2,400 mg of EPA and 1,800 mg of DHA, was the most effective dose for lowering perceived soreness at every time point measured after a damaging workout. That total of 4,200 mg of combined EPA and DHA is substantially higher than what most standard fish oil capsules provide (typically 300 to 500 mg per capsule), so check your label and do the math. Like tart cherry juice, fish oil works best as a daily habit rather than something you take only on the day you’re sore.
Curcumin
Curcumin, the active compound in turmeric, reduces muscle damage markers and soreness through its anti-inflammatory properties. Clinical trials have tested daily doses ranging from 150 mg to 5,000 mg, with most studies clustering around 200 mg to 1,000 mg per day. Curcumin is poorly absorbed on its own, so look for formulations that include black pepper extract or use other absorption-enhancing technology.
You can cook with turmeric all you want, but the curcumin content in the spice is only about 3% by weight, which makes it nearly impossible to get a therapeutic dose from food alone. A dedicated supplement is the practical route here.
Creatine Monohydrate
Most people associate creatine with strength and muscle size, but it also appears to help with recovery. A meta-analysis found that people taking creatine monohydrate had significantly lower levels of muscle damage markers between 48 and 90 hours after exercise compared to those who didn’t supplement. Soreness ratings at 24 hours post-exercise were also moderately lower in the creatine group, though that specific difference didn’t reach statistical significance.
The standard daily dose is 3 to 5 grams. Creatine is inexpensive, well-studied, and has a strong safety profile, which makes it one of the easier additions to a recovery routine.
Magnesium
Magnesium plays a direct role in muscle contraction and relaxation, and people who exercise intensely need 10 to 20% more than sedentary individuals. Studies on magnesium supplementation for soreness have used doses between 300 and 500 mg per day, with the general recommendation for active adults falling around 360 to 420 mg daily plus that extra 10 to 20% bump for heavy training.
Not all forms are equal. Magnesium citrate appears to be the best form for muscle-related benefits. Timing also matters: taking it about two hours before training may be more effective than taking it afterward. Many people are mildly deficient in magnesium without knowing it, especially if their diet is low in leafy greens, nuts, and seeds, so supplementing can address both a nutritional gap and a recovery need at the same time.
Protein Timing Is Less Important Than You Think
There’s a widespread belief that slamming a protein shake immediately after your workout will reduce soreness. The research doesn’t support this. A study giving participants a large dose of whey protein (1.5 grams per kilogram of body weight) either 10 minutes before exercise, 10 minutes after, or split between both found no significant differences in muscle soreness, strength recovery, range of motion, or blood markers of muscle damage compared to a control group. A single dose of protein around your workout, regardless of timing, didn’t help with DOMS.
This doesn’t mean protein is unimportant for recovery. Adequate daily protein intake is essential for muscle repair and growth. But obsessing over a narrow post-workout “window” for soreness reduction isn’t backed by evidence. Focus on hitting your total daily protein target instead.
Hydration and Electrolytes
Dehydration makes soreness worse because it impairs your body’s ability to flush metabolic waste from muscles and deliver the nutrients needed for repair. The general guideline is to drink 16 to 24 ounces of fluid before exercise (about two hours prior) and another 16 to 24 ounces afterward. If you’ve been sweating heavily, the ideal target is 24 ounces for every pound of body weight you lost during the session.
For sessions lasting more than 45 minutes, a sports drink with electrolytes is more effective than plain water. The sodium and potassium in electrolyte drinks help your body actually retain the fluid rather than just passing it through, which keeps your muscles hydrated during the repair process.
Why You Should Be Careful With Ibuprofen
Reaching for ibuprofen after a tough workout is common, but it comes with a real cost if you do it regularly. An eight-week study comparing daily ibuprofen use (1,200 mg, the maximum over-the-counter dose) against a low-dose aspirin control found that ibuprofen users gained roughly half the muscle volume in their quadriceps: 3.7% growth versus 7.5%. Strength gains were also significantly lower in the ibuprofen group. The drug suppresses a key inflammatory signaling molecule that your muscles need for the repair-and-rebuild process.
Occasional use for severe soreness is unlikely to derail your progress, but taking ibuprofen as a routine part of your training recovery is counterproductive. You’re essentially paying for short-term comfort by sacrificing the muscle and strength gains you’re training for in the first place.
Putting It All Together
The most effective approach combines daily habits with targeted pre-workout timing. Fish oil and creatine work best as daily supplements you take consistently, not just on hard training days. Tart cherry juice and magnesium are most effective when taken in the days leading up to and immediately surrounding intense sessions. Curcumin can be taken daily or around training. And staying on top of hydration and total daily protein covers the nutritional foundation everything else builds on.
No single supplement will eliminate soreness after a genuinely hard workout, but stacking two or three of these strategies together can noticeably reduce how sore you get and how quickly you bounce back. Start with whichever options fit your budget and routine, give them a few weeks, and adjust from there.