You may think your workout is over as soon as you step off the saddle, but your body is actually just starting another type of work. During the ride, your muscle fibers break down, triggering bio-chemicals and nutrients to travel around in order to repair the damage.
Depending on the severity of the damage, it can take a few hours to a few days for this healing process to complete. In the meantime, you may experience delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), which is where your muscles feel sore, achy, and tight. Your thighs may also get a little swollen, thanks to the extra fluids circulating.
“The sensation of tightness and delayed onset muscle soreness is a sign of inflammation,” says Christopher Hicks, M.D., a sports medicine physician at Northwestern Medicine Huntley Hospital in Illinois. Inflammation is an essential part of the recovery process your body goes through to repair tissue damage and get you ready for your next ride.
To help with this process, you need to rest worn-out muscles and fuel properly so your body has the tools it needs to mend injured tissue and grow back stronger. However, consistently short-change your recovery by withholding important nutrients or skipping rest days, and your body can remain in a state of chronic inflammation, which is when the helpful process can lead to negative side effects.
What It Means to Have Chronic Inflammation
Whereas acute or short-term inflammation aids postworkout recovery, chronic inflammation is detrimental to recovery, says Chirag Panchal, D.O., a family medicine physician with Orlando Health Physician Associates in Florida.
If you live in a chronically-inflamed state—say from constant stress over several months—the bio-chemicals that should repair your muscles can turn on you, destroying tissues and causing cells to malfunction. This is why chronic inflammation increases the risk of diabetes, cancer, arthritis, and heart disease (among other issues), per research in Nature Medicine.
While regular exercise offers anti-inflammatory effects, according to research, a systematic review published in 2019 shows that long periods of intense exercise, without efficient recovery, can lead to elevated inflammatory markers, increasing risk of chronic inflammation.
To that end, taking steps to maximize muscle recovery in between workouts is key for preventing chronic inflammation, so you can ride strong for years to come. But that’s not the only way to sidestep chronic inflammation and the potential side effects of living in a consistently inflammatory state.
How to Reduce Inflammation in the Body
Adopting specific lifestyle habits, particularly those below, can help keep inflammation under control.
1. Give Your Muscles a Break
Not every workout should leave you feeling gassed. “If you’re constantly in the saddle using those legs, hips, knees, and ankles, those joints, tendons, ligaments, and muscles are going to get inflamed,” Panchal says.
Just as you need time off from work or school to rest and recharge, your body also needs a break. Take an easy day after every hard workout, and introduce some variety by cross-training.
2. Score Plenty of Sleep
“Sleep is the most overlooked recovery period postworkout,” Hicks says. You miss out on a bevy of benefits when you don’t get the recommended seven to eight hours of sleep per night.
In particular, sleep is the time when tissue-rebuilding substances, like human growth hormone and testosterone, do the bulk of their work. And, according to research published in Sports Medicine, the dreamless non-REM sleep phase is when your body shines at making new proteins for muscle repair.
Plus, a 2020 study published in Frontiers in Neurology links inconsistent sleep throughout the week to higher levels of inflammation.
3. Fuel Right
Immediately after a ride or other workout, your muscles are depleted of glycogen (the stored form of glucose or carbs), the main source of fuel they rely on during exercise. Your muscles also require protein in order to repair the damage from the workout. So, to move the recovery process along, you need both carbs and protein, as anything that helps your body recover can cut down on inflammation, Panchal notes.
Research has shown that, post-exercise, cyclists should keep in mind the four Rs: rehydration, refuel (carbs), repair (protein), and rest. Refuel with both protein and carbs within 30 to 60 minutes of finishing your ride. Also, prioritize anti-inflammatory foods in your diet. Fruits and vegetables that are high in vitamin C (strawberries, broccoli, tomatoes) help repair tissue, while foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids (fatty fish, chia seeds, leafy green vegetables) combat inflammation directly, Hicks says.
4. Manage Stress
Consider how you feel when you’re stressed: your heart races, your muscles tense, and you may even sweat. Panchal likens being stressed to being in a pro-inflammatory state. In fact, research published in Frontiers of Neuroscience found a link between chronic stress and increased inflammatory activity in the body.
One strategy that works to tame stress is practicing mindfulness meditation. Practice this regularly and several meta-analyses and systematic reviews indicate it can help you reduce stress levels and control your response to stress.
5. Promote Circulation
To lower postworkout swelling and resolve inflammation ASAP, do things that promote blood flow. Self-massage, compression therapy, cold water therapy, and light physical activity (like walking) are all good options, Panchal notes. Foam rolling can also enhance circulation and may help reduce muscle soreness, a side effect of inflammation.
Lauren Bedosky is a freelance health and fitness writer who specializes in covering running and strength training topics. She writes for a variety of national publications, including Runner’s World, Prevention, Experience Life and Women’s Running.
