How to Treat—And Prevent—Achy Muscles After a Tough Workout

“Those are warning signs that you probably did a little too much and should not be pushing it,” Phillip J. Adler, Ph.D., A.T.C., operations manager of athletic training outreach at Spectrum Health Medical Group, tells SELF.

However, doing some light activity is fine (and encouraged, for reasons we’ll explain below), as long as it doesn’t feel painful. The key here is to do a different exercise (and work a different set of muscles) than the one that initially made your muscles sore, Kevin M. Pennington, A.T.C., manager at Northwestern Medicine Athletic Training & Sports Performance Clinic, tells SELF. “You don’t want to continue to fatigue or stress the muscles that feel sore,” he says. “Otherwise, they don’t recover correctly and that can lead to pain, fatigue, injury, and a decrease in performance.”

What helps relieve muscle soreness after a tough workout?

Unfortunately, if you’re already in the throes of monumental muscle soreness, the only surefire remedy is time. But there are a few things you can do to help ease the pain and find DOMS relief while you wait.

Enjoy some light movement.

Yes, this sucks. “But if you’re really sore and you decide you’re not going to get off the couch, that’s the worst thing you can do,” says McCall. This is because activity increases circulation, improving blood flow throughout the body.

“It’s thought that increased blood flow and nutrients to the muscles does, in fact, speed up the repair process, which in turn should reduce DOMS,” says Seedman. While more research needs to be done, we do know that blood carries nutrients and oxygen to muscle tissue, he explains. The idea is that the faster these nutrients get to their destination (via blood flow), the faster they can get to work, and the faster you’ll feel better.

Again, this doesn’t mean you should go back to your regularly scheduled workout programming—we’re talking gentle activity, like going for a walk or hopping onto a recumbent bike. If you can manage it, Seedman also recommends some very light strength training. “Blood flow is huge, and that’s why strength training is so productive,” he says. “It’s one of the best ways to get blood flow [directly] into those muscles.”

But seriously, light means superlight, since you don’t want to do more damage to the muscle fibers, as we mentioned above. Seedman suggests using just 25 to 50% of the weight you’d normally use, or stick to bodyweight exercises.

Prioritize hydration.

Step two: Drink water. “A brief body of research shows a correlation between dehydration and increased muscle soreness and DOMS,” says Seedman. While more research needs to be done, “researchers and practitioners have postulated that if dehydration increases soreness, then increased levels of hydration can minimize it,” he adds.

The main theory here is that water helps flush out waste products, Seedman says. When muscles break down, they release waste products and toxins that need to be filtered out of the body, he explains, and these waste products are associated with increased soreness.

Do some light stretching.

Again, the keyword is light. Stretching can be a great way to release tightness and increase your range of motion when you’re sore—which can make you feel better, even though it’s not actually healing the tears in your muscles or making them repair any faster. (While stretching pre-workout usually focuses on dynamic moves, you can use static stretching after your workout, as SELF recently reported. This can help increase your range of motion, and, since your muscles are already warm, it can feel easier to get in that good stretch.)