How To Reduce Inflammation After Exercise
At Well Theory, we're here to help you live a life with less pain, less inflammation, and better overall wellness. We know that the root cause of many lifestyle diseases is inflammation, and taking small, daily steps towards reducing inflammation can have a big impact on the improvement of your physical, mental, and emotional well-being.
Inflammation plays a key part in many of your body’s natural processes. When you bump into the corner of a coffee table, the swelling that occurs afterwards protects the site of injury so it can heal quickly and easily. And when you exercise, your muscles undergo micro-tearing and strain – healing these micro-injuries is a critical part of building better, stronger muscle fibers, improving your athletic performance, endurance, and overall physical health.
Inflammation is a normal part of this process, but if you overdo it, you may experience soreness that lasts a few days and can prevent you from continuing to exercise. Generally, even after a difficult workout, you should be able to walk normally the next day. You may experience soreness, but if your movement is inhibited, chances are you’ve overdone it.
Here are some tips you can use to reduce inflammation, so you can build a daily exercise you can stick to.
HOW TO REDUCE MUSCLE INFLAMMATIONrecover faster, get healthier
recover faster, get healthier
Tip #1: Stretch. It’s imperative that you fully stretch before any intense exercise. We recommend starting a short, daily yoga routine to ensure that you get a good 20-minute stretch session in. Flexibility, like strength, is built over time. If you’re new to exercise, a yoga routine alone may be completely sufficient.
Read More: Why Yoga Is Beneficial At Any Age & Ability
Stretching helps lengthen your muscles, making you less susceptible to injury. It also strengthens your joints and protects them from injury as well. Yoga can improve your core strength, which protects your balance, spine, and more.
Yoga itself can also have anti-inflammatory results. A weak core can put strain on your spine and other bones, injuring them and creating inflammation. Strengthening your core helps prevent inflammation in that sense.
Tip #2: Don’t overdo it. Again, if you are so sore you cannot move the next day, you’ve overdone it. Don’t start a new exercise routine every week – start with just yoga, add in some weights and cardio, and slowly build up your routine. Additionally, high-intensity workouts shouldn’t be done back-to-back. If you attend a fitness class that you find challenging, give your body a break the next day and only go for a walk instead of going for a run, doing an intense yoga routine, etc. Listen to your body and make sure it’s recovered completely before challenging it again.
Tip #3: Strengthen all muscles, big and small. You want to prevent muscle imbalance. If your core is weak, then muscles in your back will struggle to compensate. If your gluteus muscles are weak, then your hamstrings can get overworked. It’s always a good idea to visit with a physical therapist or personal trainer to get an accurate assessment of your overall physical health – they can tell you where your weak points are, and tell you which muscle groups to focus on.
Tip #4: Get anti-inflammatory nutrients in your diet. Our product lineup is filled with recipes that use anti-inflammatory and antioxidant ingredients.
Post Workout Gummy
When free radicals outnumber antioxidants in your body, oxidative stress occurs. Oxidative stress can impact your heart health, promote increased inflammation throughout the body, which can result in muscle aches, fatigue, brain fog, and more.
This gummy is packed with antioxidants produced naturally in your body and plant-based antioxidants to fight free radical damage within your cells and body systems.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Meredith Warner is the creator of Well Theory and The Healing Sole. She is a board-certified Orthopedic Surgeon and Air Force Veteran.
She is on a mission to disrupt traditional medicine practices and promote betterment physically, spiritually and mentally to many more people. She advocates for wellness and functional health over big pharma so more people can age vibrantly with more function and less pain.
At Well Theory, Our surgeon-designed products are FDA Registered and formulated to help people:
- Manage the symptoms of musculoskeletal pain
- Recover vibrantly from orthopedic related surgeries
- Fill the gaps in our daily diets
- Manage pain associated with inflammation