After work you can relax. With sport this doesn’t always apply. Within two days, your muscles will often ache. Scientists think this is due to minor injuries caused by muscle strain. These take up to seven days to recover from the damage.
It’s difficult to prevent sore muscles. It even affects you if you do warm-up and stretching exercises before sport. The good news is that a bath can help with sore muscles. But opinions differ on whether hot or cold water is better for preventing it.
What can I do to stop sore muscles?
High-performance sportsmen and women increasingly use cold baths. Immediately after finishing their sport they go into an “ice bath” that apparently rapidly regenerates the muscles, inhibits inflammation and alleviates swelling and pain. The water temperature is a maximum of 15 degrees Celsius, so won’t give you chilblains.
Studies suggest that a warm bath can also help with sore muscles. The reason for this is that the high water temperature stimulates the blood supply and metabolism. Your muscles relax, the increase in metabolic rate means that damage (such as sore muscles) is repaired more quickly.
But which type should you choose? That’s where not all minds think alike. Each sportsperson is best advised to find out what’s beneficial for their body themselves. If you want to combine regeneration with relaxation after the gym, you’d best go for a hot bath.
With the right bath additive, bathing with sore muscles or before they start to hurt - right after you’ve finished your sporting activity - can be even more effective. Refreshing and vitalizing essential oils can also help regeneration, leaving you looking forward to the next session. Scents such as juniper, devil’s claw or arnica are particularly suitable for this.