What is the best way to relieve your muscles after weight lifting?

Just rest! The delayed muscle soreness is just because you’re not used to lifting. It will last 2–3 days in each muscle group and then go – it’s not a ‘repeat’ feature of lifting weights. If you take off weeks at a time then the soreness returns when you begin lifting again, but you definitely won’t have soreness if you’re lifting over 9 weeks.

You shouldn’t be training the same muscle groups more frequently than every 48–72 hours otherwise the muscles don’t have time to grow and repair after lifting.

If you’ve been doing squats then yes, your butt will hurt!

Also, make sure your diet has plenty of protein if you’re looking to build muscle – about 1–1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight every day.

I’d say stretching and taking a hot shower can’t hurt, after that rest, by all means.

Right now you just have to wait it out, and you can take some ibuprofen (always) for the pain.) Always take that medicine with a full glass of water and food.

For the future the trick is to stretch immediately AFTER exercising. When you use your muscles until they are tired lactizac acid builds in the muscle. Stretch will move the acid out into the blood stream and you system gets rid of it. Be careful not to overstretch and pull anything. Rteach your hands to the sky and then bring your hands out to the sides while still reaching. Bend over to touch the ground. Stand and put one leg in front of the other and flex your foot in front with a straight leg, and bend your back knee so you stretch your calf. And, some other simple stretches you might know.

Try it, let me know if it helps.

Ice is good, too. I’m in PT (physical therapy) now, and they always offer ice for your muscles after you workout. If you check out pro sports locker rooms after workouts, you will also see a lot of athletes icing down their muscles.

You want to ice down for about 20 minutes. After that, a hot shower might not hurt. But before that, the heat could make the pain worse.

Stretching afterwards and Ben-Gay/Tiger’s Balm. That always got me through Hell Week for high school soccer.

I completely agree with @davidshoukry. When I first started lifting weights I was in so much pain 2 and 3 days after but it went away completely on the 4th day. I kept my schedule up of making sure I had one rest day in between each muscle group and as long as I don’t have too much of a break I haven’t had the pain since.

Just think of the pain as your body frantically building bigger muscles.

Hot shower works wonders for me. I heard the potassium in bananas helps too.

@lifeflame You wouldn’t understand how many bananas I’ve eaten.

lol