Feeling sore after a workout is one of the ways we know we pushed ourselves hard, but what about when you continue feeling sore the next day? While feeling sore after an intense workout is totally normal, sometimes it’s important to slow down and give your body time tor recover.
We get that you don’t want to miss a workout, but it can be dangerous when you don’t give your body time to rest and recover. Tired muscles that haven’t recovered are more susceptible to muscle tears or tissue damage.
With that being said, the burn you feel 24 to 48 hours after an intense workout is called delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) and the pain can be a good thing. When the muscle recovers, it’s going to recover stronger than it was before.
Just make sure that you’re suffering from DOMS and not an injury. A way to tell the difference is if the pain is bilateral—if you have one sore shoulder after you’ve worked out both shoulders, it may be a sign of an injury. If you feel normal soreness in a muscle, ligament, or tendon, it’s DOMS and you can continue working out, just focus on other parts of your body and give the sore part of your body a rest for a couple of days.
