A Runners Guide to Caring for Aches and Pains

Running every day can offer you many health benefits. For instance, it can help lower your risk of suffering from a heart attack, stroke, and cardiovascular diseases. It can also lower your risk of suffering from neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. That is why running is a popular exercise in many sports training programs. However, running can make you experience aching muscles and pain throughout your body. You can do several things to care for aches and pains associated with running.

Take Some Time Off

Your muscles go through some form of physical stress when you run. That can activate pain receptors, resulting in muscle aches and soreness. If you keep on running while still experiencing this form of pain, you will continue stressing your muscles and bones, making them get more injuries. To ensure that this does not happen, you should take some time off after noticing that your muscles and bones are painful. The pain will go away within three to five days. If it fails to go away within five days, you should seek medical attention.

Apply Ice Packs to the Painful Areas

Cold compresses can help reduce pain and muscle aches. Therefore, if you experience pain or muscle aches after a hard run, you should apply ice packs to the painful areas. The ice will decrease any swelling and pain in those areas.

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How should you apply the ice packs? Put frozen vegetables or ice in a bag and remove any air from the bag before closing it. Wrap this bag using a cloth and then place it over the painful areas. Let it stay there for around twenty to thirty minutes. You should do this at least three times every day.

You should check out any skin color changes while applying these ice packs. If you notice that your skin color is changing, remove the bag containing the ice from the area. You should also do this if you experience numbness or burning sensations in the affected areas.

Try Heat Therapy

If you experience muscle pain after a hard run, you should try heat therapy. It will help improve blood flow to the affected area, easing the pain. It will also help soothe and relax the affected muscles.

When it comes to heat therapy, you can decide to go for moist heat or dry heat therapy products. Dry heat therapy products include dry heating packs, saunas, and heating pads. These products are usually easy to apply, and they consistently offer heat to painful areas. On the other hand, moist heat products offer heat penetrating deeper into muscle tissues. Therefore, they are usually more effective than dry heat products.

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Go for a Massage

If running has made your muscles sore and painful, you should go for a massage. It will help improve blood flow throughout your body. That will help ease muscle tension, relieving muscle pain.

To get the best results, you should go for a hot stone massage that involves placing heated stones on different body parts. These stones remain there for ninety minutes while your massage therapist massages the whole of your body. The therapist usually uses massage techniques that involve applying gentle pressure on the body.

Use Pain Relief Sprays

Pain relief sprays can help ease pain in joints, bones, muscles, and tendons. You can also use them to ease pain resulting from sprains or strains. They usually offer dry heat or coldness to the affected area, stimulating the natural healing process. Other pain relief sprays block the transmission of pain signals to the brain.

To get the most out of these sprays, you should choose a good quality pain relief spray. You should also avoid spraying it sparingly. Rather, focus on a small area during its application. You should also ensure that you hold the spray close to the affected area and spray in three short bursts.

Running can offer you many benefits. However, it can make you experience aching muscles. When this happens, you should go for a massage, try heat therapy or use pain relief sprays. Taking some time off from running can also help relieve muscle aches and pains.

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