#crp high and dehydrated but rest all good

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Poor baby is sick... Pain meds & antibiotics to go.

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Feeling Sore After a Workout? Don’t Do These Things if You Have Muscle Pain or Joint Pain

Working out in the gym, beginning a new workout routine, or taking up a novel sport can both challenge and support the body. While exercise is regarded as one of the best ways to maintain your physical and psychological wellbeing, sore muscles and aching joints are an inevitable result of new and strenuous exercise.

You might find yourself in dire need of muscle pain relief after a workout.

Sore muscles may make you want to throw in the towel on your exercise routine, but rest assured, there are ways you can reduce, even avoid, post-workout tenderness. And we assure you that if you stick with your new routine, post-workout muscle pain will more than likely dissipate as your body adjusts and you will see the effects of your hard work in no time.

There are actions you should avoid to reduce exercise-induced muscle pain. Before we get started on the actions to avoid, we’ll start with identifying the cause of post-workout muscle and joint pain. In addition, we’ll provide easy lifestyle choices to avoid and take to support your sore muscles.  

What is the Exact Cause of Post-Workout Muscle and Joint Pain?

Sore muscles after a workout can set in after beginning a new exercise routine or raising the bar on a current regimen. The medical term for this is delayed onset muscle soreness or DOMS. When you put in a hard workout, very small, microscopic tears in your muscle fibers can occur (this is the pain you feel when your muscles are sore), which cues your body that there is damage that needs to be repaired.

Then, as with any injury to the body, the inflammatory process kicks in. Healing cells and chemicals rush in to aid repair. This triggers swelling and tenderness typically within 24 hours, which can last for several days.

Because this type of muscle soreness is related to the inflammatory process, you can take anti-inflammatory steps to encourage muscle pain relief.

Read on to learn simple lifestyle choices to avoid as well as their alternatives, when possible.

Don’t Make Your DOMS Worse With Inflammatory Foods and Dehydration

Generally speaking, the foods we eat can both heal or harm the body. An overall healthy diet can benefit us in a multitude of ways, but an anti-inflammatory diet specifically can help reduce inflammation and aid muscle pain relief.

Inflammatory foods can exasperate post-workout muscle soreness. Additionally, common foods that may increase discomfort due to their inflammatory effects include sugar, omega-6:omega-3 fatty acid imbalance, trans fats, gluten, and excessive alcohol.

Reducing inflammation in the body is an easy, holistic approach to reducing DOMS and utilizing food to speed up your post-workout recovery.

1. Don’t eat too much sugar (or complex carbohydrates)

Most of us know that a high sugar diet can lead to extra body weight and obesity, but too many teaspoons can also elevate inflammation. A 2014 study showed that drinking a beverage sweetened with 50 grams of fructose elevates hs-CRP, an inflammatory marker identified in a blood test.

Many packaged and processed foods and beverages contain high amounts of sugar, especially in the form of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS).

Common high fructose corn syrup foods include:

Bakery goods like bread, doughnuts, cookies, and cakes

Pre-made foods like pizza and TV dinners

Salad dressings

Soda

And even some nutrition bars and cereals

Instead, stick to natural, whole food sources for your carbohydrate intake, like fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. If you’re looking for an alternative sweetener that can actually aid your workout recovery, try mānuka honey.

This type of honey is an ideal post-workout superfood, due to its ability to support healthy inflammation and its lower glycemic index compared to pure glucose or sugar. It is ideal for restoring glycogen levels lost from a workout as well as supporting recovery from exercise-induced inflammation—not to mention, it is chock full of vitamins and minerals, such as essential B-vitamins, magnesium, calcium, copper, zinc, and potassium, all of which strongly affect athletic performance and help speed up recovery.

Additionally, research published in Pharmacognosy Research showed that mānuka honey contains 22 amino acids, including all 9 that must be consumed through food.

You can also sweeten your foods and drinks with stevia, a plant extract that scores a 0 on the glycemic index and has a low-calorie count. Just remember that a little goes a long way.

2. Don’t consume too much omega-6 fatty acids from processed foods

While it may seem odd, not all fats are created equal. Many scientists and health professionals believe the skewed omega-6:omega-3 fatty acid ratio consumed by most people in the Western world is harmful and inflammatory.

When we were cave people, we ate roughly equal amounts of each fat type. Now, we consume around 15 times more omega-6 than omega-3. This matters because when out of balance, omega-6 encourages inflammation, which can trigger physical discomfort.

While both fats are essential to a healthy diet, it all depends on the source.

Processed foods like cured meats, cakes, fast foods, and snacks like potato chips and power bars might contain excessively high amounts of omega-6 fats. If you feel sore after workout, avoiding processed foods with omega-6 fats may facilitate a faster recovery.

If you insist on a fatty snack, try these low to moderate omega-6 healthy snacks instead:

a handful of almonds, sunflower seeds, or cashews

avocado on spelt or buckwheat toast or crackers

edamame beans

3. Don’t overly indulge in saturated fats

Diets high in saturated fats from meats, dairy, and trans fats have also been shown to cause low-grade inflammation in the body, which can exaggerate post-workout muscle soreness. Processed foods, particularly those that are fried, tend to be high in trans fats and should be avoided.

To keep inflammation at bay, eat anti-inflammatory foods containing healthy fats, such as nuts, seeds, olive oil, and avocado.

4. Don’t overdo it on the bread

A gluten-free diet is followed by many, including those without Celiac disease. But have you ever wondered if this style of eating might aid muscle recovery?

Gluten includes the proteins found in a range of grains including barley, rye, wheat, and triticale (a hybrid of wheat and rye). Research shows that opting for a gluten-free diet can reduce inflammation, muscle pain, and back pain. As an added advantage, it may reduce fatigue, too.

But it doesn’t mean you have to give up your favorite meals and snacks altogether. Simply try changing your diet up a bit with gluten-free replacements, just be wary about sugars and excessive carbs.

Photo courtesy of Ted Eyton/ Kaiser Permanente

Gluten-free or low-gluten snacks and meals to try instead:

Collard green wraps

Corn tortilla shells

Quinoa with steamed veggies

Spelt (While low on gluten, it’s not suitable for those with celiac disease and gluten sensitivities)

Lentil or vegetable chips

Seaweed chips

Mixed nuts (preferably unsalted)

5. Don’t forget to hydrate

You probably learned elsewhere that water makes up for more than half of the human body and that you cannot live without it. But did you know that dehydration can lead to subtle problems that can affect your muscles, including producing inflammatory responses in the body?

That’s why it’s important to remain hydrated and replenish your body with liquids after a workout. Since you also lose salt as you sweat, a sports drink containing electrolytes is recommended. However, watch the sugar content.

Don’t Forget These 5 Essentials to Support Your Sore Muscles 

If you feel sore for several days after a workout, you might consider quitting. Don’t! As you maintain consistency, your muscles will adapt and thrive. This is simply par for the course.

If you experience pain that prevents you from carrying out daily activities, you likely pushed yourself too far, too soon. Back off and build up gradually. The discomfort shouldn’t last beyond 72 hours.

Besides avoiding certain foods, don’t forget these things before you begin strenuous exercise.

Make sure you warm-up and cool down sufficiently. This includes stretching for a minimum of 5 minutes before and after your workout. It is also imperative to warm your body up with some low-intensity cardio activity, such as walking on a treadmill or using the elliptical.

Take cold baths or showers. This can help numb the pain temporarily and give you some much-needed relief.

Use a topical pain reliever. Naturally derived topicals like CBD MEDIC

Active Sport Ointment or Active Sport Stick provide pain relief quickly by directly targeting the source of discomfort with cooling and heating sensations of menthol and camphor.

Take supplements that support muscle and joint health. Turmeric and ginger are both known to support healthy inflammatory processes and joint health. You can include them in your diet or use Charlotte’s Web

CBD RECOVERY GUMMIES to support recovery from exercise-induced inflammation.

Use a foam roller. If you feel sore muscles kicking in a day or two after your workout, the continued pressure and rolling motion over sore muscles can help diminish built-up lactic acid and speed up your recovery time. You can also do this immediately following your workout as a preventative measure.

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*Remember: If your muscle soreness begins during or immediately after exercise, it is not delayed onset muscle soreness. It takes time for the inflammation related to this to settle in. That’s why the word “delayed” is in the name. Pain that occurs during an exercise can be a sign there is a problem. Stop the activity and seek professional advice before serious joint or muscle damage occurs.

Don’t Let Muscle Soreness Keep You Down

Working out in the gym brings a raft of health benefits. Finding ways to continue exercising, safely and comfortably, are crucial for both your physical and psychological wellbeing. The steps discussed in this article will enable you to settle sore muscles and harness your fitness.

<<Ease Your Pain and Get Better Workouts>>

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This information is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace medical diagnosis or treatment. Seek medical assistance for any injuries. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. The products mentioned in this blog are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

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What Can Heat Do For Your Health?

A few months ago, I explored the benefits and applications of cold therapy. Today, I’m going to talk about the benefits and applications of heat therapy—one of the most ubiquitous and ancestral therapies in the history of humankind. You name a culture and—as long as they didn’t live in perpetual tropical heat—they probably had some form of heat therapy. Native Americans had the sweat lodge, those of Central America the temazcal. The Romans had the thermae, which they picked up and refined from the Greeks. Other famous traditions include Finnish saunas, Russian banyas, Turkish hammams, Japanese sentó (or the natural spring-fed onsen), and the Korean jjimjilbang. People really like the heat.

Right off the bat, that’s one major benefit to heat therapy compared to cold: It’s an easy sell. “You can luxuriate in a sauna for half an hour or lower your naked body, genitals first, into a bathtub filled with ice water. Your choice.” People are far more likely to sit in the hot room for 20 minutes than they are to sit in an ice bath for 3 minutes or even take a cold shower. Short-term heat exposure is generally regarded as pleasant. Cold exposure is generally regarded as torture. If heat therapy offers legit health benefits, this is a major point in its favor. So, does it?

Oh, yes.

In a recent review of the available observational studies, controlled trials, and interventions, researchers found evidence that sauna usage has an impressive array of beneficial effects on health and wellness:

Increased lifespan and decreased early mortality.

Reduced cardiovascular disease.

Lowered blood pressure.

Improved cognitive function and reduced the risk of neurodegenerative disease.

Improved arthritis symptoms.

What’s going on here? How could sitting in a hot room do so many good things?

Stress, in a word. One of the coolest things about us is that encountering, facing down, and then growing resistance to one type of stress tends to make us better at dealing with stress from other sources. A 30-minute sauna session at 174 ºF/80 ºC raises body temperature by almost 1 degree C, spikes your flight-or-flight hormones, raises cortisol, and triggers a powerful hormetic response by the rest of your body. That’s a stressor. After such a session, subjects report feeling “calm” and “pleasant.” This isn’t a surprise. Intense exercise also raises cortisol in the short term. And like regular exercise, longer term sauna usage (daily for four weeks in one study) actually reduces stress hormones.  It’s a classic hormetic response, where acute doses of the stressor increase oxidative stress enough to provoke a compensatory adaptation by the organism.

What does this sauna-induced hormetic stress do for us?

Benefits of Heat Therapy

It reduces oxidative stress. Short term, it increases stress (that’s why we see the transient spike in cortisol and other stress hormones). Long term, it reduces oxidative stress. Long-term sauna use has an inverse association with levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), a “catch-all” biomarker for oxidative stress and inflammation. The more often you use the sauna, the lower your CRP.

It may reduce mortality. The more frequently a person visits the sauna, the lower his risk of premature death from heart attack and all causes. There is a dose-response relationship happening here, which has me leaning toward “causal.” Those using the sauna two to three times a week had a 23% lower risk of fatal heart attack compared to men who used it just once a week. Men who used the sauna four to seven times a week had a 48% reduced risk of fatal heart attack compared to once-a-weekers. The more frequently men used the sauna, the greater the protection (for other causes of mortality, too).

It improves vascular function. A single bout of sauna (or exercise, for that matter) reduces vascular resistance—the amount your blood vessels “resist” blood flow—in hypertensive patients for up to two hours.

It’s good against type 2 diabetes. Sauna use has been shown to improve almost every marker related to type 2 diabetes, including insulin sensitivity, fasting blood sugar, glycated hemoglobin, and body fat levels.

It can improve depression scores. Patients with depression who underwent heat therapy saw improvements in their Hamilton Depression Rating.

If you’re an athlete, or exercise at all, you should try the sauna. Training magnifies the benefits of the sauna.

Finally, pairing exercise and heat therapy together is a boon for cardiovascular health. For instance, people who frequent the sauna and the gym have a drastically lower risk of heart attack death than people who do either alone. That combo also reduces 24-hour blood pressure in hypertensive patients and confers special protection against all-cause mortality above and beyond either variable alone.

Post-Workout Benefits

Post-workout sauna sessions improve endurance performance in runners: For three weeks, endurance runners sat in 89° C (+/- 2° C) humid saunas for 31 minutes following training sessions. This amounted to an average of 12.7 sauna sessions per runner. Relative to control (no sauna), sauna use increased time to exhaustion by 32%, plasma cell volume by 7.1%, and red cell volume by 3.2% (both plasma cell and red cell volume are markers of increased endurance performance).

Post-workout sauna use increases plasma volume in male cyclists: Following training sessions, cyclists sat in 87° C, 11% humidity saunas for 30 minutes. Just four sessions were sufficient to expand plasma volume. This is important because increasing plasma volume improves heat dissipation, thermoregulation, heart rate, and cardiac stroke volume during exercise.

Post-workout sauna—either dry or steam—can also alleviate muscle fatigue.

How About Pre-Workout?

The effects are more mixed. In one study, pre-workout sauna reduced strength endurance and 1 rep max leg press, had no effect on 1 rep max bench press, and improved maximum power (vertical leap). Another study found that in female athletes but not in males, maximum power decreases after sauna use. It’s possible that these performance disturbances are caused by dehydration rather than the heat itself, so make sure you rehydrate if you’re planning on training after a sauna session.

If you want to apply heat pre-workout without overdoing it, I’ve always liked a nice hot bath to help limber up, mobilize my joints, and clear out any stiffness for the coming workout session.

Oh, and It Can Help You Detox

I was going to write the full word “detoxification,” but I figured I’d write “detox” just to trigger the hardcore skeptics reading this…. Heat exposure can augment your natural detoxification capacities by at least two mechanisms.

First, exposure to extreme heat increases something called heat shock proteins, or HSPs. HSPs are responsible for many of the benefits of heat therapy, including enacting beneficial hormetic effects on our detoxification capacity. They trigger compensatory adaptations and activate antioxidant defenses in the blood of healthy volunteers. They even increase regeneration of the body’s main detoxifying organ—the liver—after it’s been damaged.

Second, contrary to popular belief, sweating can aid detoxification. Sweat itself contains bioaccumulated toxins, including BPA—even when it doesn’t show up in the blood or urine. Sweat also contains certain phthalate compounds and their metabolites, none of which we want. Sweat also contains arsenic and lead in people exposed to high levels of the metals. Sweating may even improve the function of another important detoxification organ—the kidney—by restoring nitrogen excretion in people with kidney disease. In one study, police officers with chronic illnesses caused by exposure to high levels of meth lab chemicals experienced major improvements after sauna therapy.

What If You Don’t Have Access To a Sauna?

There are other options.

Steam rooms work. Only problem with them is it’s difficult to remain in one long enough to trigger the necessary stress response. Saunas, with their dry heat, are easier to stick with. Steam rooms feel different enough that I wonder if there’s something unique about them. Not enough evidence to go on, unfortunately. Perhaps I can revisit this later.

Jacuzzis and hot baths work. A recent paper found that taking regular hot baths at home improved insulin sensitivity and increased nitric oxide synthase activity about as much as working out. Another found that, compared to showering, bathing improved mood, perceived stress, blood flow, and accumulation of metabolic waste products.

You could probably sit in a black car on a hot day with the windows rolled up and get an effect.

Just get hot, as hot as you can stand. Then stay a little longer. (As always, be sure to talk to your doctor. Certain conditions and scenarios, like pregnancy, require extra caution with saunas or other forms of heat therapy.)

Have you used the sauna? Are you a regular attendee? Or do you use other means of heat therapy? I’m curious to hear your experiences, tips, and stories below.

References:

Laukkanen JA, Laukkanen T, Kunutsor SK. Cardiovascular and Other Health Benefits of Sauna Bathing: A Review of the Evidence. Mayo Clin Proc. 2018;93(8):1111-1121.

Leppäluoto J. Human thermoregulation in sauna. Ann Clin Res. 1988;20(4):240-3.

Sutkowy P, Wo?niak A, Rajewski P. Single whole-body cryostimulation procedure versus single dry sauna bath: comparison of oxidative impact on healthy male volunteers. Biomed Res Int. 2015;2015:406353.

Laukkanen JA, Laukkanen T. Sauna bathing and systemic inflammation. Eur J Epidemiol. 2018;33(3):351-353.

Laukkanen T, Khan H, Zaccardi F, Laukkanen JA. Association between sauna bathing and fatal cardiovascular and all-cause mortality events. JAMA Intern Med. 2015;175(4):542-8.

Krause M, Ludwig MS, Heck TG, Takahashi HK. Heat shock proteins and heat therapy for type 2 diabetes: pros and cons. Curr Opin Clin Nutr Metab Care. 2015;18(4):374-80.

Laukkanen JA, Laukkanen T, Khan H, Babar M, Kunutsor SK. Combined Effect of Sauna Bathing and Cardiorespiratory Fitness on the Risk of Sudden Cardiac Deaths in Caucasian Men: A Long-term Prospective Cohort Study. Prog Cardiovasc Dis. 2018;60(6):635-641.

Kunutsor SK, Khan H, Laukkanen T, Laukkanen JA. Joint associations of sauna bathing and cardiorespiratory fitness on cardiovascular and all-cause mortality risk: a long-term prospective cohort study. Ann Med. 2018;50(2):139-146.

Gayda M, Paillard F, Sosner P, et al. Effects of sauna alone and postexercise sauna baths on blood pressure and hemodynamic variables in patients with untreated hypertension. J Clin Hypertens (Greenwich). 2012;14(8):553-60.

Hedley AM, Climstein M, Hansen R. The effects of acute heat exposure on muscular strength, muscular endurance, and muscular power in the euhydrated athlete. J Strength Cond Res. 2002;16(3):353-8.

Gutiérrez A, Mesa JL, Ruiz JR, Chirosa LJ, Castillo MJ. Sauna-induced rapid weight loss decreases explosive power in women but not in men. Int J Sports Med. 2003;24(7):518-22.

Genuis SJ, Birkholz D, Rodushkin I, Beesoon S. Blood, urine, and sweat (BUS) study: monitoring and elimination of bioaccumulated toxic elements. Arch Environ Contam Toxicol. 2011;61(2):344-57.

Genuis SJ, Beesoon S, Birkholz D, Lobo RA. Human excretion of bisphenol A: blood, urine, and sweat (BUS) study. J Environ Public Health. 2012;2012:185731.

Khodarev VN, Zhemchuzhnova NL, Olempieva EV, Kuz’menko NV. [The influence of general infrared sauna on the antioxidant systems in the blood of volunteers]. Vopr Kurortol Fizioter Lech Fiz Kult. 2013;(5):10-3.

Shi Q, Dong Z, Wei H. The involvement of heat shock proteins in murine liver regeneration. Cell Mol Immunol. 2007;4(1):53-7.

Mccarty MF, Barroso-aranda J, Contreras F. Regular thermal therapy may promote insulin sensitivity while boosting expression of endothelial nitric oxide synthase–effects comparable to those of exercise training. Med Hypotheses. 2009;73(1):103-5.

Goto Y, Hayasaka S, Kurihara S, Nakamura Y. Physical and Mental Effects of Bathing: A Randomized Intervention Study. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2018;2018:9521086.