It might seem crazy to go for a walk when you’ve crushed a brutal leg workout but that could be the best thing for you. Active recovery gets talked about but never really discussed. Active recovery can be foam rolling, walking, stretching, low intensity workouts, cycling, really anything that creates blood flow to the sore region without causing more muscle damage. Is all the hype really warranted?
When it comes to active recovery you can do a lot of different things. Foam rolling, stretching, walking, and low intensity workouts are an attractive way to help elevate your muscle soreness, and commonly recommended. Foam rolling is a really common recommendation but doesn’t provide a high level of benefit. (PMID: 28902111).
What’s left is light exercise or stretching to help improve recovery and reduce soreness. You could do something like static stretching, walk, or an extremely light bout of exercise. While doing some very light dumbbell bench press after a soreness-inducing bench press session shows some ability to alleviate soreness and help with recovery, the evidence isn’t that impressive and will only help a little bit (PMID: 30844990, 29755363).
It’s safe to say that doing nothing is worse than doing something, however if you’re so sore that you’re looking for some recovery magic you’re probably pushing it a bit too hard. The strategies discussed could help if you accidentally go too hard in a workout but shouldn’t be relied on for your recovery all the time. Good nutrition, sleep, and making sure your training volume is appropriate will be your best bet to keep undue soreness at bay.