Why use pain relieving creams after your workout?

I’m sure that you have heard the expression “no pain, no gain” at some point in time.  This comes from an old-school belief that if you’re not sore, then you’re not training hard enough. 

 While this way of thinking is completely untrue, occasional muscle soreness is something that you will have to deal with when you’re working out consistently.  This pain can range from moderate to severe but can easily be controlled with the help of a high-quality pain relief cream.

 Using a pain cream to provide relief from hard workouts in the gym could be one of the best things you’re not doing.  A good pain cream has several important befits, but before we go over that, let’s find out what’s causing all of this training discomfort. 

 The Cause of Workout Pain

Nothing will ruin a great workout like waking up the next morning in pain because of extreme muscle soreness.  This horrible phenomenon is referred to as delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) and is responsible for countless individuals never returning to the gym again. When you’re in the gym and exercising with any type of resistance, your muscles get damaged.  This damage is due to trauma of the connective tissue and can be quite painful.  Soreness will begin around 6-8 hours after exercise and will reach its peak in 48 hours. 

Now that you know exactly what the cause of all your unwanted muscle soreness is from, you can already see why reducing these effects would be important.  Here are a just a few the reasons to use pain relieving creams after your workout:  

 Continue Exercising

Remember when we previously talked about individuals who get so sore that they never return to the gym?  Unfortunately, this happens all of the time.  This scenario typically effects novice fitness enthusiast, but even the most seasoned athlete will be affected by DOMS. 

Losing weight, getting stronger, improving sports performance, and building muscle are all fitness goals that require consistency if you want to achieve them.   If soreness from one workout prevents you from getting to another workout, how is this helping your cause? 

Treating DOMS with a pain cream is extremely useful for reducing soreness and helping you push through to the next workout. 

 Daily Activates

Maybe getting over muscle soreness and inflammation isn’t necessary to get back in the gym; it’s needed to get your normal day-to-day activities completed. Daily activities can be anything from getting the kids ready for school, going to work, walking through the neighborhood, or mowing the yard.  Can you afford not to be able to perform these simple, but important, tasks because you are sore from your last workout?

Dealing with muscle soreness can, at times, be so severe that it makes just walking around the house a daunting task.  If you have ever had an epic barbell squatting day before, you have undoubtedly paid this price. 

Continuing to move around is also an important element in reducing DOMS.  It will help to loosen and stretch your muscle, which can speed up muscle recovery.  By applying pain cream to these specific areas, you can get plenty of daily activity that otherwise might not be possible. 

 Health Benefits

Since fitness has become something that you are striving to achieve on a daily basis; your health will always be paramount.  This is one of the biggest reasons that you would choose a pain cream over an oral pain reliever. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), like ibuprofen, are commonly consumed for treating cases of DOMS, but they can come at a price.  Gastral intestinal bleeding is a very serious side effect of taking NSAIDs but can be eliminated by using topical pain creams. 

 Oral pain medication has to be ingested, then broken down by the body and delivered to the problem area via your blood stream.  This can, unfortunately, lead to liver and kidney problems if used long-term.

The National Athletic Trainers Association states that the use of pain creams is a viable option for reducing pain in athletes.  The association also declares that topical pain creams are superior to orals because they have no systemic side effects. Pain-relieving creams are also used by chiropractors and physical therapists every day to provide relief for their patients and athletes.  Something that’s used by professional organizations such as these would definitely be an aid to your training and recovery as well.   

By: James R. Kearns