How to Prevent Soreness After Leg Day for Pain-Free Progress

Leg day can be brutal. You push your limits, crush your workout, and leave the gym feeling accomplished. But the next day, you can barely walk. Instead of getting back to business as usual, you’re sidelined by soreness. If you’ve ever been there, you’re not alone. Many lifters experience post-leg day soreness, also known as delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). Causes of DOMS include muscle damage and inflammation from new or intense exercise. As annoying as it can be, soreness is a natural part of working out. But it doesn’t have to dictate your routine. Learning how to measure flexibility play a big role in reducing soreness and improving performance. In this article, we’ll cover how to prevent soreness after leg day so you can stay consistent with your workouts and reach your goals. The less sore you are, the quicker you can return to your routine, and the better you’ll feel about your training.
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What Causes Sore Muscles After a Workout?

We know the benefits of exercise. Cardio burns fat and improves our heart health. Strength training builds muscle, boosts metabolism, prevents injury, and is suitable for our bones. We need these benefits to live active, healthy lives.

‍But does putting in the work have to mean putting up with sore muscles?

“Unfortunately, if your goal is to challenge your muscles, which it should be regardless of your age or gender, muscle soreness can't be prevented,” says Lauren Murray, health fitness coordinator and personal trainer at Houston Methodist. “But the good news is that there are ways to lessen the severity of the soreness you experience.”

The first thing to know about muscle soreness is that anyone can experience it, regardless of whether they're new to exercise or work out regularly, but have recently increased the type, intensity, or duration of their routine.

We All Build Muscle The Same Way: By Breaking it Down First

“The extra load placed on your body during exercise creates tiny microtears in your working muscle,” explains Murray. “These microtears are normal. They're necessary for muscle growth. But these microtears are also what lead to soreness.” As the body heals and repairs these tiny tears, muscle builds back stronger and healthier than before, but at an uncomfortable cost. “The sore muscles you feel after a workout are a byproduct of the muscle healing process, and this soreness is called delayed onset muscle soreness, or DOMS, since it doesn't happen immediately,” says Murray. 

Delayed onset muscle soreness isn't to be confused with the acute soreness that can happen during or immediately after completing an exercise, which is related to muscle fatigue, not muscle repair and strengthening. “Typically, delayed onset muscle soreness begins about 12 to 24 hours post-exercise and can peak anywhere between one to three days,” says Murray.

What Causes Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS)? 

Typically, the intensity of DOMS that one experiences is proportional to 

• The intensity of the workout or exercise. 
• The amount or volume of physical activity performed at high intensity. 
• How unaccustomed an individual is to the exercise(s) performed or to physical activity in general. 

The more mechanical stress your leg muscles undergo (i.e., the harder they work during squats, lunges, sled pushes, etc.), the higher the DOMS discomfort you'll likely experience over the following days. If your body isn't familiar with any particular exercises you perform or has a low baseline of physical fitness, you'll be sure to experience a hefty amount of DOMS. 

‍As such, a recipe for massive amounts of DOMS goes something like this: 

• Excessive DOMS = heavy resistance + high volume of exercise + brand new exercises 

There's no clear answer as to why there's a delay in muscle soreness. Murray does point out, however, that the duration of your soreness very likely depends on how intense your workout was. “The more intense the workout, the longer the muscle healing and rebuilding process may take,” Murray adds. 

What Types of Workouts Cause Muscle Soreness? 

Workouts with many eccentric exercises will likely leave you hobbling the next day. Strength exercises have two obvious phases: 

• The concentric (the phase when the muscle is shortening, typically the lifting part)
• The eccentric (the phase when the muscle is lengthening, typically the lowering part). 

The eccentric phase is when you create tears in the muscle fibers and when your muscles are working at their strongest. 

(Downhill running can also count as eccentric exercise, which is why DOMS is more likely to occur after it.) “You get this really high level of force production in the muscles, so you have a false sense of how much exercise you can keep doing because you haven't fatigued that much,” exercise physiologist Joel Seedman, Ph.D., owner of Advanced Human Performance in Atlanta, says. 

Causes of Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS)

This can make it tricky to tell when you're overdoing it. You're also more likely to experience DOMS if you push your body to movement patterns it's not accustomed to, engage smaller muscles that your workouts don't typically touch, or stress the muscles way more than they're accustomed to or prepared for. That might mean a virtual boot camp class with tons of lateral lunges, too many biceps curls (especially if they’re eccentric-focused), or just way more volume (more sets and reps) than you're used to. 

“Now and then, you might get carried away, you might go to a new class, or you might have a substitute instructor,” exercise physiologist and ACE-certified personal trainer and spokesperson Pete McCall, M.S., C.S.C.S., host of the All About Fitness podcast, explains. Extreme soreness can happen anytime you do something your muscles aren't familiar with, even if that's just going extra hard in a competitive boot camp class. 

Is It Okay to Exercise With Sore Muscles? How Sore Is Too Sore After a Workout? 

In general, it's considered okay to exercise with sore muscles to a certain degree. However, if you have severe muscle soreness, meaning you have trouble doing day-to-day activities like walking down the stairs or lifting your arm, heavy exercise can make things worse. 

It should generally be avoided until you feel better, according to the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). “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, explains. However, doing some light activity is fine (and encouraged, for reasons we'll explain below), as long as it doesn't feel painful. 

Active Recovery: Working Different Muscle Groups to Aid Soreness

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, says Kevin M. Pennington, A.T.C., manager at Northwestern Medicine Athletic Training & Sports Performance Clinic. “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.”

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How to Prevent Soreness After Leg Day

Easing into new types of training helps reduce the risk of soreness after workouts. Muscle soreness often occurs when a person tries a new kind of training or returns after a layoff. Since this soreness is likely due to muscle damage, it makes sense that easing into a new type of training (or into any training, if you’re just starting) can help make soreness after a workout less likely.  

Progress Slowly With New Workout Types

Miranda says, if you usually do equally timed contractions for strength training, spending about the same time on lifting and lowering, but want to start incorporating eccentric training, you should gradually add it into your routine. If you usually do four sets of regular biceps curls, maybe you do one or two sets the first time you try eccentric biceps curls, for instance. 

If you want to try a new type of training, like with a virtual class, choose a shorter class aimed at beginners, which will introduce you to the moves rather than throw you right in. 

Manage Your Training Loads and Overall Volume to Reduce Soreness After Leg Day  

The next step, which doesn't sound exciting, is appropriately managing your training loads and volumes. This means performing leg exercises with weights (training loads) that stimulate rather than annihilate your muscles. 

The second step involves conducting an ideal training volume within each lifting session. Volume simply refers to the sum of your sets, repetitions, and weight lifted (volume = sets x reps x weight lifted). 

Minimal Effective Dose: Optimizing Training for Muscle Adaptation

The goal of your training should be to stimulate your muscles to trigger adaptations in strength and size, which doesn't require you to perform dozens of sets from a half-dozen or more exercises within a training session. This concept looks different for each lifter depending on their:

• Conditioning
• Training goals
• Needs
• Abilities

It's worth knowing that striking the minimal effective training dose will cut out any unnecessary soreness you may be experiencing after leg day. 

Incorporate Active Recovery to Alleviate Soreness After Leg Day  

Post-workout recovery, which can facilitate the reduction of soreness, can occur through two different means: 

• Passive recovery interventions
• Active recovery interventions

Let’s explore the similarities and differences between these two forms of recovery.  

What is Passive Recovery?  

Passive recovery intervention involves receiving therapeutic input to your muscles from external sources (massage therapy, compression garments, etc.). This intervention lets your body sit still as it receives input from external sources (i.e., your muscles aren't moving while being acted upon), allowing your body to naturally recover independently, which is also considered passive recovery. 

While passive recovery certainly has its time and place, active recovery interventions are the gold standard for reducing soreness after leg day. These interventions have scientifically proven protocols (more on that in a moment) and don’t require specialized therapeutic equipment.  

What is Active Recovery?  

Unlike its passive counterpart, active recovery intervention creates a recovery cascade (a series of physiologically favorable reactions) within the muscles by moving your muscles in ways that prevent them from sitting still. Think of this as an internal stimulus for your muscles instead of an external stimulus. If you're interested in shutting the door on soreness, active recovery is the first step you need to implement. 

Active recovery is typically what most people consider cool-down exercises, such as walking, leisurely cycling on a stationary bike, and stretching following their workout. While generalized cool-down activities are certainly a good idea, if you're serious about reducing soreness after leg day, you'll want to read the following section that goes over how to clear 60% more lactate from your muscles than when compared to passive recovery alone.  

Lactic Acid Flush Protocol  

Soreness results from numerous physiologic disruptions (cellular and metabolic changes) within the muscles caused by a challenging workout. This isn't a science class, and the details aren't necessary. But a basic conceptual understanding is essential. 

An easy way to think of it is like a car engine: the engine (your muscles) uses fuel sources to operate, but generates exhaust (a bunch of “junk”) in the process. With exercised muscles, one of the components of this “exhaust” is a metabolic byproduct known as lactate or lactic acid. 

‍Without going into the scientific weeds, here's the basic premise to be aware of: 

• The more of this substance you leave to sit in your muscles after a workout
• The more soreness and stiffness you'll likely experience over the coming days

Naturally, the more of it you can clear from your muscles as quickly as possible, the less soreness you'll have. And this is where performing a lactic acid flush comes into play. 

In a study by Martin et al. (1998), performing the following lactic acid flush protocol on a stationary bike at 40% VO2 max following intense leg exercise yielded 60% greater lactate removal than when compared to passive recovery interventions (sitting still) or sports massage. 

How to Perform a Lactic Acid Flush on a Stationary Bike:  

Hop on a stationary bike a few minutes after completing your last working set in your training session. Begin pedaling at 80 RPM and dial in the resistance level on the bike so that your heart rate is around 60% of its maximal rate when pedaling. Hold this pace at this resistance level for 20 minutes. 

Active Recovery: Low-Intensity Cycling to Reduce Soreness

If you're not planning on using a heart rate monitor here and aren't quite sure what 60% maximal heart rate intensity feels like, simply aim for an intensity of 6/10 on the bike; this intensity should feel mildly taxing but by no means something that should by no means think exhausting or overly strenuous. 

Spending 20 minutes on a motorcycle to clear 60% greater amounts of exercise-induced lactate following a lower-body workout is a small price to pay for experiencing notably reduced soreness and stiffness over the following days. Besides, some light conditioning work does the physique good, too!  

How to Perform a Lactic Acid Flush on Other Cardio Equipment  

If you only have access to a rower, an air bike, a treadmill, or other piece of conditioning equipment other than a stationary bike, here’s what I would do: 

• Work at a pace that lets you keep moving for 20 minutes. 
• If you're using an air bike or rowing machine, you should likely go slower than 60% of your maximum heart rate. 

This slower pace ensures your leg muscles contract and relax properly for the best possible lactate removal. If you have a treadmill, walking briskly or with a slight incline (or both, if available) would work well. Getting your heart rate in the optimal 60% zone and sustaining this movement for 20 minutes should be easy.   

How to Perform a Lactic Acid Flush with No Cardio Equipment  

If you don’t have access to conditioning equipment, a brisk walk outdoors will likely benefit you. Regardless of the exercise mode, the key is to perform continual, low to mid-grade movement intensity for your legs. 

‍Make your movement challenging enough to feel like your heart rate is mildly elevated, but not so elevated that you can’t move at a brisk pace for the entire 20-minute duration. The worst thing you could do is to sit still after a leg workout, which will only facilitate the collection of DOMS-inducing lactate to stay put within your leg muscles.

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What Helps Relieve Muscle Soreness After a Tough Workout?

The last thing you want to do is move. However, gentle activity like walking or hopping on a recumbent bike can help alleviate soreness and improve recovery after an intense workout. “Activity increases circulation, improving blood flow throughout the body,” explains exercise physiologist Mike McCall, C.S.C.S. “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.” 

While more research is needed, we know that blood carries nutrients and oxygen to muscle tissue. The idea is that the faster these nutrients reach their destination (via blood flow), the faster they can get to work, and the quicker you’ll feel better. 

Light Activity and Strength Training for Recovery

This doesn’t mean you should return to your regularly scheduled workout programming. We’re talking about gentle activity, like walking or hopping onto a recumbent bike. Seedman also recommends some light strength training if you can manage it. “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, as we mentioned above, you don’t want to do more damage to the muscle fibers. Seedman suggests using 25 to 50% of the weight you’d normally use or sticking to bodyweight exercises.

Stay Hydrated to Reduce Soreness

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. 

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

Fuel Your Recovery with Protein 

Protein is a critical nutrient for building and maintaining muscle, so it plays a massive role in helping your muscles recover from a challenging workout. While you should be eating enough protein all the time to prevent recurring or long-lasting soreness from your workouts, says Seedman, it can still be helpful to double-check that you’re eating enough protein after the damage is done. 

“You can almost argue that that’s going to be as important as light exercise [to recover],” he says. This doesn’t necessarily mean excessively high amounts of protein. While needs vary, people who work out should aim for about 1.4 to 2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight, per the International Society of Sports Nutrition. For an active person who’s 150 pounds, that’s about 95 to 136 grams per day, split up between all your meals.

Ice or Heat? It’s Always a Personal Preference 

The debate between heat therapy and cold therapy is ongoing, but when it comes down to it, it’s just about what feels good to you for the most part; the effects are temporary. But when you’re super sore, any fleeting relief (as long as it’s safe) is worth it. Seedman says ice can help reduce the swelling that sometimes comes with extreme soreness. 

Bringing the swelling down can help relieve some pain-causing tension. Elevating your legs (if that’s where you’re sore) can also help. However, says Seedman, heat can also minimize tension and pain signals. So, if relaxing in a warm bath makes you feel better, do that. McCall also notes that this may help with circulation.

Massage Away Muscle Soreness 

The ACSM says that massaging tender points can help ease the symptoms of DOMS. But visiting a masseuse whenever you go hard at the gym isn’t realistic. That’s where self-massage can be helpful, whether with a recovery tool like a foam roller, a massage gun, or even just with your hands. “Just be careful, because some people can go overboard and be too rough, creating even more muscle damage,” Jason Womack, M.D., chief in the division of sports medicine at Rutgers University - Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, explains. 

If you’re doing self-massage and you start to experience more discomfort or pain (beyond feeling like you’re gently working out a knot or sore spot), it’s best to stop or at least ease up on the pressure.

Prioritize Sleep for Recovery 

It’s so simple, but it will make a huge difference. Dr. Adler says that getting enough shut-eye after a challenging workout can give your muscles the time to repair themselves efficiently. 

A 2019 review of research in the International Journal of Sports Medicine3 found that getting a sufficient amount of sleep (defined as seven-plus hours a night for most adults) can improve athletic performance across various sports and exercises, from better sprint times to more accurate tennis serves. 

Stretch It Out...Gently 

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 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. 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.) 

But more isn’t always more. “You have to be careful,” says Seedman. “Doing some light stretching can be good, but trying to overstretch the muscle when it feels extremely tight can actually cause the muscle to come back even tighter because the body is trying to resist it.” 

‍How do you know how far it is to go? 

“Stretch until it feels pretty tight, let up after 5 to 10 seconds, and then repeat that, without ever getting to the point where it feels unbearable,” says Seedman. If it’s too painful to even think about stretching, skip it, it’s just about getting some temporary relief if you can.

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