STOP taking painkillers for sore muscles!

Everyone who's ever pushed themselves working out has experienced muscle soreness. This could be a "ehh I'm just a little sore" or "omg what did I do, I can't move".

Either way, you might have been told to reach for an ibuprofen or an Advil to relieve some of that pain. After all, you've just beaten down your muscles and put a lot of stress on your ligaments, bones, and tendons, and of course there's inflammation. So why not take an anti-inflammatory?

BUT for general soreness, especially if you want your body to properly recover and get stronger.... you shouldn't.

When your muscles are broken down and sore from working out, they become inflamed, BUT that's a good thing! That is the first step towards healing, and your nutrition is what is going to speed up that process by bringing the proper nutrients into the muscle for recovery. As a result, that is helping your body adapt to the stress you put on it, so it can make you stronger, to be able to better handle that stress in the future.

If you are suppressing those benefits by taking an anti-inflammatory, you could be suppressing the protein formation that occurs in the muscle, inhibiting skeletal muscle growth/ bone healing, and there is even evidence that suggests using ibuprofen regularly for soreness may damage cellular tissue and prevent your body from even taking full advantage of exercise.

I'm not even a fan of ice packs or ice baths to reduce inflammation, because that is just slowing down the body's healing process similar to an anti-inflammatory. The goal of working out and training is to recover as fast as possible to be able to workout again and workout more effectively and efficiently.

There's an exception to all this, of course. If you have an actual injury, using a painkiller to reduce inflammation may help you heal.

But for general muscle soreness, you're much better off eating enough protein and carbs, and supplementing creatine or a post workout.

CLICK HERE to find out what I use for muscle soreness and recovery!