A hard workout can come back to haunt you. When you wake up the next morning and try to get out of bed, everyday motions like rolling over and standing up can make your muscles whine in pain. You might have wanted to exercise again, but now you’re wondering: Can I still work out if I’m this sore?
Well, it depends.
“Soreness isn’t necessarily a bad thing,” says exercise physiologist Alyssa Olenick. Some degree of soreness is normal when you train hard or challenge your muscles in new ways. It’s a natural effect known as delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), in which discomfort typically peaks within 48 hours post-exercise, then usually goes away within 72 hours. It happens because putting different or higher demands than usual on our muscles can lead to tissue breakdown, which triggers an inflammatory response. (Don’t worry—that breakdown isn’t bad; the repair process that follows is actually how our muscles grow stronger.)
“Your body basically brings a ton of immune cells to that muscle tissue, because it wants to go in and clean up that muscle breakdown,” Olenick explains. “And the soreness that you feel is actually just the swelling and all those cells coming in to clean up that breakdown, putting pressure on your nerves in your muscles.”
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The key thing to pay attention to is just how sore you feel. If the pain is up to about a “three” on a scale of one to 10, that’s perfectly fine to push through, according to Rick Richey, faculty instructor for the National Academy of Sports Medicine. You might just need to adjust your workout based on your soreness level, Olenick adds, lifting lighter weights or running a little easier, for instance.
However, if your soreness is more than just a mild ache, take it as a sign to back off. “Your body is smart: It’s telling you that you’re sore so you don’t do it again,” Richey says.
In this instance, it’s best to give your body time to…
