How do you deal with muscle soreness after exercise? In addition to relaxing muscles and promoting blood circulation, getting a good night’s sleep is also an important way to repair muscles. In this article, I will share my four favorite sports massage oils that can relieve soreness and boost your mood.
Have you ever experienced stiff legs or body soreness after exercise? For the delayed onset of muscle soreness, I like to use a roller to help relax the muscles and then massage with essential oils to promote blood circulation, soothe the mood, and get good-quality sleep.
Benefits of Sports Massage Oil
There are many kinds of products that can help soothe the body after exercise, including traditional soreness relief patches or soreness relief creams, massage oils, massage bars, foam rollers, and so on. I prefer to use massage oils or massage bars for three main reasons:
1. Relieve Soreness and Promote Circulation
Western herbal and plant essential oils can help eliminate soreness and enhance blood circulation. Just like Chinese medicinal herbs, those from the Western world can help lymphatic or blood circulation, accelerate the metabolism of waste products, and provide nutrients needed to repair muscles.
2. Keep the Skin Moisturized
The skin often loses a lot of water during exercise, especially outdoors during hot weather. Under various conditions, such as intense light, chills, and even low temperatures, the skin will become drier and more fragile. Therefore, it is important to help the skin replenish moisture after exercise. Massaging with essential oils can help replenish moisture to maintain skin health.
3. Good-Quality Sleep
Good rest is the most important part of recovering from exercise fatigue. At the same time, a calm mind can help relax muscles, too. Some essential oils with your favorite fragrance can aid this relaxation and make it easier to achieve quality sleep at night.
Elements of Massage
To relieve muscle soreness, I will also add manual lymphatic massage or use a massage comb to help detoxify and relax the muscles. When massaging the back and inside of the thighs and calves, start pressing from bottom to top. When massaging the outside and front of the thighs and calves, try pressing from top to bottom, all the way to the Achilles tendon.
Amber Yang
Amber Yang is a certified personal trainer. She met all the requirements of the American Council on Exercise to develop and implement personalized exercise programs. She worked as a marketing manager for natural skin care products for years and as a health and beauty reporter and editor for ten years. She is also the host and producer of the YouTube programs "Amber Running Green" and "Amber Health Interview."
