If you’ve ever felt the soreness of post-workout muscles, you know how painful it can be. Some experts say that this pain is caused by microscopic tears in the muscle that occur when you ask your body to do something new or more strenuous than usual.

Other sources point out the role of lactic acid in muscle soreness – this by-product of cellular respiration can settle into the muscles during the hours following a workout, setting the stage for muscle pain.

How can you avoid this crippling feeling after working out? Here are some ideas on how to reduce muscle pain after exercising.

Hydration

Drinking plenty of water before, during, and after your workout helps your body flush out those by-products your body produces as a result of burning energy.

Slow Start-Up Cool-Down

It may help your muscles to start and stop your workout gradually. If you jump right into intense muscle strain, it could produce more damage than if you warm up with cardio exercises first.

Stopping exercise abruptly may not be good, either – if you work your muscles intensely, and then go sit on the couch, your blood – loaded with all kinds of microscopic by-products from your workout – may “pool” or stagnate in your muscles. Since the blood vessels remain dilated for some time after a workout, say experts, having a cool-down period where you walk gently and keep your muscles moving should greatly minimize the next-day soreness.

Calcium and Magnesium

These minerals are crucial for muscle integrity. Taking a calcium and magnesium supplement daily is recommended to prevent muscle soreness – you might want to increase your intake of these minerals on the days you work out by eating foods with lots of magnesium and calcium: black beans, dark leafy greens, and low-fat dairy products, for example.

Stretching

As part of your warm-up and cool-down, include stretching. This oft-repeated advice is easy to forget, but it’s considered very important for preventing pain after your workout. At the beginning of your session, stretching preps the muscles for a more strenuous workout by increasing flexibility and circulation. At the end of your workout, stretching helps relax tense muscles and keep circulation moving.

Take a Cold Shower

Okay, maybe it doesn’t actually need to be cold – but cooling your muscles down after a workout might help prevent muscles soreness, say some sources. While most of us think of heat to relax muscles, cold is said to reduce inflammation, and inflammation is the culprit in muscle soreness that results from muscle damage. A bath or shower in water as cold as you can stand may help keep your muscles from becoming swollen and sore.

As you begin on a regimen of fat-burning exercises, it helps to know a bit about how weight loss works. Within each fat cell are drops of oil made up of triglycerides. These drops of oil are, essentially, the body’s fuel reserves. If you continue eating more calories than you burn, the body continues to store up the triglycerides in your fat cells.

During weight loss (which can be initiated through fat-burning workouts), hormonal triggers cause the fat cells to release these stored-up triglycerides. Then they are processed primarily by the liver to give you the extra energy your body needs to keep up with your exercising.

So for fat-burning workouts to be effective, the above cycle needs to be set into motion. Many sources claim to have the best exercises; in sorting through them, you can discern some common threads to put together an optimal fat-burning workout. Here are some ideas on how to get the most fat-burning out of your exercise time.

1. Intensity versus Length

Some sources suggest that a short, intense workout may actually burn fat better than long, drawn-out hours in the gym. This does seem like good news – many people are pressed for time, and a gym membership is not for everyone. For an intense workout that is reputed to burn fat effectively, try a combination of those old exercises you might remember from gym class:

* Jumping jacks
* Squats
* Running in place (vigorously)
* Push-ups
* Lunges
* “Iron Chair” or wall sit
* Reaches and side-bends

This approach is said to be more effective if you do not rest between exercises.

2. Cardio and Toning

Cardio and toning exercises are said to be a winning combination. Cardio exercises work large muscle groups and increase the heart rate and circulation, and target toning concentrates on the muscles of particular parts of the body (arm and leg curls, weights, etc.). For an effective fat-burning workout, try following 20 minutes of vigorous walking with 10 to 20 minutes of weight training. Or, after 30 minutes of aerobics, work on some specific toning moves like push-ups or butt-toning exercises.

3. Resistance Exercises

Interestingly, resistance exercises actually cause minute amounts of damage to the muscles being worked. As the body rebuilds and repairs this damaged tissue, it builds the strength and tone of the muscle. Lifting weights may be the most effective type of resistance workout, but resistance exercises are really defined as any exercise that contracts the muscles. You can incorporate resistance into your cardio workout by carrying or attaching weights, or add weights to your toning regimen.