PODCAST - i’m always sore—here’s exactly what i do about it
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[00:00:00] Welcome to The Athlete with Asthma Show. I'm your host, Johnny Hapie, an ultrarunner, endurance athlete, and yes, a guy who's had an inhaler prescribed since birth. Despite doctors telling me I could never play soccer nor run a marathon, let alone a 100K ultra, I proved them all wrong. This show is where I share everything I've learned, from breathing techniques to mindset shifts, to help you become the athlete and the person you truly want to be.
So if you're ready to achieve your goals despite limitations, let's get started.
Do you ever feel like you're always sore? I do, and today on the show, I'm gonna share with you exactly what I do about it. But I first want to start by breaking down the difference between good sore and bad sore. Because depending on what type of sore you [00:01:00] feel in your body really dictates what you and I need to consider doing about it, or to address it.
Now, the reason why I personally feel like I'm always sore is because I work out six to seven days per week, and lately I've been working out twice per day. Not every day, but a lot of days, three or four days a week, I'm working out at least two times. So yes, I feel sore a lot, and for the most part, I do believe that I feel good sore.
And here's what that looks like. Good sore is dull, achy, and maybe even a little tight feeling in the muscles. Now, I do wanna preface this by saying that the reason why this is looked at as good sore is because I work out a lot. If you find yourself working out a lot, or even if you don't work out a lot but you work out a couple days a week, and then you start feeling [00:02:00] sore somewhere between 12 and 48 hours after a workout, then this dull, achy tightness that you feel in your body can be looked at as good sore.
And what good sore really is is it's your body getting- Stronger. It's your body recovering from you pushing yourself, from you progressively overloading your body to get stronger, to get more fit. So the other things we wanna look at here when we're looking at good sore, it really should improve with movement.
This is really important because you can still have a bad sore response in your body or bad pain in your body from a workout. But if it improves with movement, this typically means that it's good sore. For me, after a hard training block, I may find my legs sore, my glutes sore, even my core, upper body.
But if I go outside and I start walking, I [00:03:00] feel it start to loosen up. I feel the soreness start going away. Improves with movement. The other thing is we wanna look at what in our body feels sore. Is it just one side of our body? Is it isolated or is it symmetrical? Do you feel that both of your legs are sore?
Both of your arms are sore? For me, I did different exercises this week, and I'd never done before. Farmer carries with plates, where you basically take 25 pound plates that you put on a barbell and grab them and you pinch them in each hand and you hold them by your sides. So my wrists and forearms are real sore right now.
It's been about 48 hours since I've done this workout, and my forearms are super sore, but it's both sides. It's not just one side. It's symmetrical. So this is good sore. And if you're feeling this right now, then this is a good thing. It means you're getting stronger. On the other side, we have [00:04:00] bad sore.
Bad sore is really a warning- For you and I. So bad sore doesn't necessarily mean that you're injured, it just means that your body is talking to you and it's trying to tell you that you need to do something about the soreness. That doesn't mean with good sore that you shouldn't rest and all these things, but bad sore really means that if your wrist, if only one of your wrists hurts and you just did a workout, maybe your form was wrong.
Maybe your wrist is compensating for something else going on. So bad sore is really warning signs. Some things we wanna look at are if you feel sharp, stabbing, or like I said, localized pain. I brought up my wrist because on Saturday when I was doing burpees, I accidentally came down on my wrist a little hard on one of the burpees, and I definitely know that today because my right wrist is very sore in different places, which means that I need to rest it, [00:05:00] versus my left wrist feels pretty okay.
Now my forearms are sore. Different parts of my hands are sore for the grip, but really my right wrist is a little sore. Other thing, I had plantar fasciitis in my left foot for about two years, and if you know plantar fasciitis, yeah, it can be dull, it can be achy, it can be tight, but when it really starts getting bad, it's sharp, it's stabbing, and it's localized.
Now, it does improve with movement, but still what this was telling me, it's a warning sign to my body that I need to stretch. I need to loosen up different areas of my legs to stop having all this pressure on my heel. I have an entire podcast episode and a YouTube video about how I recovered from plantar fasciitis without stopping working out and running.
Just 'cause you have soreness that's bad and it's warning you, doesn't mean you necessarily have to stop working out. It just means you have to be in tuned with what the heck's going on. Joint pain. This is important. I will sometimes go on a run- And [00:06:00] feel some pain in my knee. This is not normal. This is not good.
But what this tells me is that my quads are most likely really tight. My hip flexors are tight. My glutes are tight. So what I need to do is ... Typically, if I go out on a run and I feel this a mile into the run and I'm far away from home, I start walking, and then I start working on my quads. I start trying to find the knots in my legs.
And then I'll go in and see my chiropractor and have them figure out if there's anything really bad going on. Now, these localized pains and even plantar fasciitis that I was talking about, it usually gets worse first thing in the morning, then you start walking on it, start getting blood flow, start moving, then it gets better.
But if you start putting it under more strain, running four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 20 miles, and then it gets worse. I dropped out of a race because of plantar fasciitis, 'cause it was getting bad as I got to those higher mileage points. Even though it felt better than it did the night [00:07:00] before when I got up in the morning, it felt worse after putting more and more miles on.
So if it gets worse with movement, be careful, and potentially- Stop that movement so you can figure out what's going on and prevent an injury. Bad soreness is really warning us and helping us prevent injuries. Good soreness is showing us that we're getting stronger. Ever since I was a kid, I've been an athlete, even when I was told at four years old that I shouldn't be as active as I was because I got diagnosed with asthma.
But at the time, I played a lot of soccer, and I remember playing five or six games in a weekend when we'd have tournaments. And once I built up my lungs using progressive overload to strengthen them, I was able to play five or six games in a weekend. And most of the time, I would be extremely sore after the weekend, but it'd be good sore.
Today, I run 20 to 30 miles a week. I play tennis a couple hours a week. I go to the gym two or three times a week, and I go [00:08:00] to group fitness classes a couple times a week. I do a lot of things that can create good and bad soreness. Well, no matter if it's good or bad, I've really integrated a holistic routine to deal with having consistent soreness.
Now, maybe you only work out a couple days a week, and you only feel sore two or three times a week because of that, or maybe you work out all the time like I do, and you constantly feel sore. Maybe you constantly feel sore, and you only work out a couple days a week. Whatever it is, I highly recommend that you have a strategy to take care of yourself and the soreness in your body.
Really, the first thing that I always do when I feel sore is movement. And no, I'm not saying I feel sore and I go out there and run 100 miles. I don't even go out there and run a mile. But I do move my body. And really, the reason why I do this is because I like to know, is the soreness good or bad? And [00:09:00] if I move, and my soreness gets better, then it's most likely good soreness.
If I move, and it gets worse, then it tells me, "Okay, I need to take a day off from running. I need to take a day off from the row machine. Maybe I shouldn't lift heavy in my lower body today. Maybe I should take it easy lifting upper body today." Movement gives us a lot of information along with- getting our blood flow going.
It really gives us a lot of information about if the soreness is good or bad. The second thing I do, and this is only if it's good soreness or if I feel like I can do a workout that isn't going to affect a part of my body that is bad sore, then I do work out. Yes, I work out. Because what I've found is I really get the sorest when I do new things while working out.
But when I do things that I've done before, I find that I'm less sore next time. When I do new things, I'm more sore. Now, it's good to be sore when it's good [00:10:00] sore because that means you're growing and you're teaching your system a new thing, and your muscles are able to grow more because of that. But working out is really important, just telling your body that you're okay.
And very interesting, if you are training for an event... So I'm an ultra runner. I also am starting to become a HYROX athlete, hybrid fitness racing athlete. And- What I've learned is when training for any of these things, you're gonna have really heavy training weeks. Well, lighter training weeks, it is actually better to work out than to not move at all.
We just do a lighter Workout. Before any race, I could be running a marathon all the way up to 100 kilometers. I run one to two miles the day before the race. And I do this because it helps loosen up my body before race day. It also, when you are putting your body through these [00:11:00] really intense workout routines, these really intense workout seasons in your life, and then you take a lighter workout, our brain is prepared because we've taught it that it needs to go and heal different parts of our body.
Well, when you do a lighter workout than what your mind and your body is expecting, then, uh, you actually recover more because the messaging has been sent, the plan has been executed, but then you aren't putting that much of a strain on your body, so you have this net positive effect on your body. Versus you're just laying around doing nothing.
Your brain isn't told, "Okay, we need to do all these things because he's about to do this hard thing." So I like to do lighter workouts. But this is only if it's good soreness. And if I do have bad soreness in my wrist, for example, I can still go run. If I have bad soreness in my knee, then I can still go to the gym and row.
I can swim. I can get on the stationary bike, [00:12:00] put very little resistance and spin. We wanna move a little bit. We wanna figure out if we have good or bad soreness or if we have a combination. Usually bad soreness is localized and then we can avoid the localized spot. Next, food and hydration. When you feel sore, your body is telling you that it needs to recover, even if it's good soreness.
So giving our bodies healthy food and nutrients- And proper hydration. Hydration including electrolytes. This helps our body recover, and this is great for good and bad soreness. For bad soreness, you may need even more food, hydration, and other nutrients. We gotta have food, we want protein, we want nice fats.
And, uh, healthy carbs are good, too, depending on what your situation is. I recommend you talking to a healthcare professional. A disclaimer in the show notes and in the YouTube description. And depending on what kind of athlete you are, you may need more carbs. Carbs give us energy and can really help us [00:13:00] with our next workout, can help us recover from the workout we just did.
Next, we need to sleep or at least rest more. When you're super active, your body needs more sleep. I personally have been prioritizing sleep more these days, especially because I'm working out six to seven days a week, and I'm even doing two-a-days three or four times a week. I'm making sure that I'm in bed for six to nine hours per night, and I even lay around and take naps when I have time.
Sleep and rest is extremely important for good and bad soreness. Next, stretching and yoga. What finally helped me get over my plantar fasciitis, which is really tightness in the heel, and it can be really excruciating, stabbing pain, and it really sucks. I had it for a couple years and it got progressively worse.
I wasn't doing what I needed to to get over it, and I eventually started stretching every single day with a specific device that allows you to drop your heel and really stretch out your calf, your Achilles, and the bottom of your [00:14:00] foot all at once. Been doing that with a couple other things for two or three months, and boom, it was healed.
Stretching and yoga cannot only help you with bad soreness, it can help you prevent good soreness and overwork on your body from turning into- Bad soreness. So yes, I still stretch about three to four days a week, even if it's just for five minutes a day. And I teach yoga once a week, and I do most of the practice with my students, and it helps me get a 45-minute yoga session in every week as well.
Next, cold plunging, or if you're more like me and you don't have access to a cold plunge all the time, I do cold showers. Now, I was having a conversation about this with a good friend of mine a couple weeks back, and he shared with me that you need to be careful when you actually cold plunge and cold shower.
And, uh, I've heard this... from different people. He specifically told me that if you're looking to build muscle and build fitness, [00:15:00] then cold plunging right after a workout actually may not be the best thing for you to do. Now, I still haven't read up on it, and he's sending me resources to get my head wrapped around this more, and I'll put out a podcast episode later on about how to optimize cold plunging once I know more about it.
But what I do know is that cold plunging and cold showers help you bring the inflammation down in your body Now inflammation can be good though after a workout, and that's the theory here, is if you work out and then you cold plunge right away, in theory, you're not empowering your body to build muscle as efficiently and as effectively.
So what my friend has recommended is he still cold showers and cold plunges when he can every single day, but he does it away from his workouts. So he'll cold shower in the morning, work out later in the day, which I've heard cold shower and cold plunging is best in the morning anyway 'cause it's really good for waking up our system, giving you energy, and it can help you flush out that inflammation in the morning.
Then he works out later in the day. He doesn't do a shower or cold [00:16:00] plunge after. I still find myself stacking my cold showers after working out in the morning, after taking a run in the morning. But I have, since I heard about this, been more mindful of doing my cold plunges and my cold showers away from a workout.
This can be really tough 'cause when you go to the gym... Like, I'll go to Life Time Fitness with a friend of mine, and we'll work out for a couple hours, and then we go and we cold plunge. I mean, I'm not planning on coming back later. I'm already here. So just know that cold plunging and cold shower is really good for inflammation, really good for helping you with the soreness in your body.
That's why we ice things, right? That's why if you have bad soreness, icing can be really huge for helping you recover faster. But depending on your fitness goals, just looking at how we integrate cold plunging and cold showers and the timing of it can be really important. Next, for me, I integrate CBD and arnica.
Now, I prefer just taking CBD, and arnica I don't really like to take. I like to take arnica cream and [00:17:00] put it on different muscles. If I get a headache, sometimes I'll put it on my shoulders to really loosen things up. The point here is there are supplements and other things that you can use in your body to help with soreness.
For me, I love CBD. My other business, eLearning Partners, one of my clients is one of the pristine CBD manufacturers in the world, and their product is extremely pure and safe, and I highly trust their product. So I will take it as a tincture, and I have some of their muscle gels, and I'll put that on different parts that are sore as well.
But having some sort of tools, some sort of natural tools that you can integrate into your body to help with the pain and the soreness is really important. Next, it's kind of a newer one that I started doing this past year, is I use a Shakti mat. What is a Shakti mat? Well, it's a brand of sorts, but really this is acupressure.
Acupressure is based on the ancient [00:18:00] practice of laying on a bed of nails. What this does is it stimulates blood flow in your body. I'm not recommending this. I'm just telling you what I do, and this is something I've messed with this year, and sometimes it helps me a lot. Other times it activates my nervous system, and I feel hypervigilant and on high alert.
But when- I use the Shakti mat when I'm sore or when I'm already hypervigilant. What I find is that it relaxes my body. And at night when I use it, it can really help me with sleep, help me with that sleep and rest. But when I feel tightness in my neck and my back and I lay on the Shakti mat, it tends to relieve that a little bit.
So I'm still messing with this, and I don't really make recommendations on this channel anyway. But if you're looking at the board and you wanted to try different things, the thing that I am the most cautious about is the Shakti mat and acupressure. I'm just learning, and it helps me in certain ways, and it [00:19:00] doesn't help me in other ways.
So remember, with all of this, you're trying to figure out a practice that helps you if you always feel sore. And if you are working out as much as I do, then we need these self-care routines to help take care of ourselves and our bodies. Okay, the last two, going to a chiropractor and getting massages.
I'll do these, especially getting massages, with good soreness. But really, these are really important tools if you have bad soreness. And it does depend on the type of chiropractor and type of masseuse you go to. My chiropractor and masseuse both know that I'm very active, an ultra runner. I am becoming a hybrid fitness racing athlete.
And my masseuse, he does Spartans and all these different obstacle course races, and he's a sports masseuse. So what both of them make sure is that everything is moving properly, that range of motion is okay, that my chiropractor will check if [00:20:00] things are in and out of alignment. So especially when I have bad soreness, like I- Twisted my ankle a week or two ago.
My chiropractor was able to say, "Hey, yeah, I mean, your ankle's looking pretty good. We just align some things and just take it a little easy." My masseuse is able to check, "Okay, you're really tight here. Your range of motion's lower." When your range of motion decreases, your chance for injury increases.
That's why stretching's so important. This is why having the ability to get this information is so important. And that's why if you're starting to feel bad soreness, you really do need to talk to a professional of some sort. Could be a medical doctor, it could be these other professionals as well. You should probably always have a medical doctor in your corner and have some of these alternative medicine options as well.
Now, I told you movement is really probably the most important thing, 'cause this helps give us information and dictate if we're having good or bad soreness. Movement is also one of the three pillars of healthy living I talk about in my Healthy Living Guide. Three pillars being movement, tracking, and accountability.
When you [00:21:00] combine these three pillars together, you're able to live a healthier and happier life. And I wanna give this guide to you as a gift for spending this time here today listening to this podcast episode or watching this video. You can grab your copy in the show notes or in the description if you're watching this on YouTube or go to www.athletewithasthma.com/healthy-living-guide to grab your copy today.
I'll see you in the next episode.
Thanks for tuning in to The Athlete With Asthma show. I hope today's episode inspired you to overcome any perceived limitations you may have. Remember, your health and wellness journey isn't about perfection, it's about progress. So I invite you to take a small step right now towards your goals. And if you found something helpful here, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share the podcast with others on a similar [00:22:00] path.
Until next time, keep challenging yourself and redefining what's possible
