Sep 18 2007
5 Tips To Handle Muscle Soreness
A lot of times boxing training feels like a physical and mental marathon. How hard can you push your mind and body compared to your opponent? Certainly one of the biggest setbacks to training (outside real injury), is significant muscle soreness.
What causes soreness? Generally the theories are small muscle tears, torn capillaries and waste products left in the muscles. The remedies and preventative measures generally involve increasing blood flow to the area, and ensuring a proper blood flow after exercise to cleanup the waste products.
My 5 Tips to Eliminate Muscle Soreness
Based on my experience I’m listing these in reverse order of effectiveness:
5. Massage - I might rank massage higher if I had a professional sports oriented masseuse doing my massages, but so far the effects haven’ been as pronounced as the other 4 tips.
4. Stretching - I can’t emphasize how important this is. I was never into stretching, but I’ve only been able to manage the intense workouts I’ve done in boxing with regular stretching.
3. Hot Baths - These work well and feel great, though I’ve had even more luck with the dreaded ice bath.
2. Ice - Ice baths are a regular part of my training. Fill the tub with the coldest water that comes out of the faucet. For treating your legs use just enough water to submerse your legs. Then throw in 3 medium sized bags of ice. Wait till the ice almost melts and get in for 8-20 minutes.
I’m not going to lie, the first 3 minutes of pre-numbness are pretty rough. The first time is like torture, the second is not so pleasant either, but you get used to it. But to quote the now celebrity CEO of the UFC, Dana White, “Do you wanna be a (bleeping) fighter?”
1. Light Exercise - This is a great way to get the blood flowing into the sore muscles. If you have sore thigh muscles, you can do 10 light minutes on the exercise bike. Calf muscle soreness can be a real annoyance, try a half round of jump rope (or maybe less if you’re just starting out). It sounds counter intuitive, but because it floods blood to the area it works amazingly well.
Hey Nerd of Steel,
I’m glad to see you’re back in training. I hope it’s going well for you. Keep up the good work.
“Do you wanna be a (bleeping) fighter?”
Yeah, I do. Wanna make something of it? Hah.
This question serves as an important reminder for me. I must remember that my opponent may be training as hard or even harder than I am.
I just hope he’s not a guy who makes ice baths a regular part of his training…