How to make your muscles hurt less after a workout
Doing a workout makes you feel great. With all the endorphins pumping through your body, a trip to the gym is a sure-fire way to make you feel proud of yourself that you chose squats over the sofa. That is until the morning after, of course, when the muscle pain kicks in.
Even the best warm ups and cool downs sometimes can't prevent DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) from attacking, and you find yourself walking sideways down stairs like some kind of limp crab in order to ease the pain.
But according to a former US Navy SEAL, Clint Emerson, there's an easy way you can increase your chances of preventing muscle soreness the following day. Emerson told Business Insider his trick is to finish off a post-workout shower with a burst of cold water. To be fair, this sounds fairly unappealing, but if it's a quick and easy way to stop your muscles from killing the next day, I'm open to anything.
"In SEAL training you spend a lot of time in cold water and there’s actually some science to the madness of putting us in cold water," Emerson said in his Business Insider video.
He continued: "The reason professional athletes do it all the time after a workout is it increases recovery. It vasoconstricts the entire body, squeezing out all of that lactic acid so that you can feel good to go the next day and be ready for the next day training."
So there you have it. If professional athletes and Navy SEALs do it, there's got to be some logic behind it. Just make sure you've got a warm towel and a fluffy dressing gown awaiting you after you do it.
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