Extra Sore After a Workout? Here's What Your Body's Trying to Tell You

A hard workout is likely to leave a lasting impression in the form of muscle soreness. You might wake up the next morning and find it hard to swing your legs over the side of the bed, thanks to those deadlifts or that intense HIIT workout.

If you're feeling a little soreness or muscle heaviness after a workout, that's usually normal, says Katie Hake, RDN, CPT, a registered dietitian nutritionist and certified personal trainer. Soreness in the day or two following a workout, called delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), indicates that your body worked hard, and it's trying to rebuild and strengthen itself, she explains.

"During exercise, your body is breaking down. Your muscles are tearing and breaking down to rebuild and get stronger," she says. "It's OK to be uncomfortable."

But when you're feeling ​extra​ sore either immediately, or in the days following a workout, it could be indicative that something needs to change.

"Extra" sore, Hake explains, is any soreness that keeps you from moving normally. If you're limping up the stairs or have trouble sitting onto the toilet, that's extra. Also, if you'd describe what you're feeling as painful rather than just uncomfortable, that's also extra.

Here are seven reasons you're dealing with excessive muscle soreness after exercise — and how to fix them for better, safer and far more comfortable results.

Take the mantra, "no pain, no gain" with a grain of salt. As Hake points out, some soreness is normal and means your body is rebuilding and getting stronger. But when you're in legit pain, it's time to look at how hard you pushed.

For example, did you go from living the couch life to busting out a half-marathon or lifting heavy weights? Too much too fast, Hake says, can overly stress the body.

It's worth mentioning that, while rare, a condition called rhabdomyolysis can result from extreme overexertion. Rhabdomyolysis happens when the proteins from the breakdown of muscle fibers leak into your bloodstream, leading to potential heart issues and kidney failure, says Paul M. Gallo, EdD, a fellow at the American College of Sports Medicine and director of exercise science and wellness at Norwalk Community College.

The rare condition can happen following a very rapid onset of intense training.

There are hard workout days that are necessary to get stronger, and there are ​too​ many hard workout days that can lead to decreased performance and muscle loss, says Gallo.

Symptoms of overtraining include extremely fatigued muscles, poor sleep, disrupted hormones and depleted energy stores.

"Soreness after a hard workout isn't necessarily a bad thing," Gallo says. "It's a bad thing if we take these heavy, heavy days and intense workout and keep nailing ourselves with them."

Without time to properly recover — physically and nutritionally — you head into the territory of overtraining and excessive muscle soreness, Gallo explains.

"At that point, there's a drop-off in performance, and you might see a drop-off in lean body mass, which is a very negative sign," he says.

Other signs that you might be overdoing it is a feeling of "brain fog," loss of motivation, and chronic fatigue. In other words: burnout.

If excessive muscle soreness continues for more than three days after your workouts, it's a strong sign of potential injury, Hake says. That could be acute, like a strain or sprain, or chronic, like the gradual wear and tear that can happen with overtraining and poor exercise form.

Ever feel like you just can't massage your muscles enough? Muscle knots, as we lovingly call them, can happen for two reasons, Gallo explains: You're overtraining and not stretching, which leads to tight connective tissue, or it's basic muscle damage as your muscles get used to higher-intensity workouts.

Yes, what and how much you eat and drink can affect your performance ​and​ your recovery. Not only does your body need enough calories to perform its basic functions and fuel a workout, it has to be the right kind of calories, Hake says.

Without proper intake of carbohydrates, protein and fat, for example, your body can't rebuild muscle and recover, making you feel extra sore. Gallo explains that without protein, for example, there is nothing your body can use to stop muscle breakdown and start building it back up.

"Fuel in the form of carbohydrates will replenish [glycogen stores in the muscle], and protein will help with recovery and to rebuild muscle," Hake says.

Hydration is super important, too. Gallo says that dehydration can cause muscle cramping that may feel like your muscles are knotted. Water and fluids with electrolytes will help keep your muscles functioning properly, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

Exercise, Hake reminds us, is a form of physical stress (exercise can also reduce levels of emotional stress). On its own, that stress is generally good: It spurs your body to become stronger after a workout.

But when the physical stress from exercise comes with the baggage of a global pandemic, for example, it can become excessive, Hake says.

"People don't really make that correlation," she says. "They go for a workout and say, 'I don't understand why it was so hard today,' and they're thinking about just the workout, not what else is going on in life that feels — literally and figuratively — heavy."

You can feel that added emotional stress in the form of muscle soreness and tightness, especially in the shoulders and neck, according to the American Psychological Association.

Sleep is incredibly important when it comes to recovery after physical activity, Hake says.

"So much happens when we sleep as far as rejuvenation in the body," she says. "If we're not sleeping well or long enough, there's a disruption in hormones and our overall function."

If the body loses out on the sleep it needs to recover from your workouts, excessive muscle soreness can result. Your strength, endurance and exercise performance can also suffer, according to a July 2019 review in the ​International Journal of Sports Medicine​.

​Ready to nix soreness? This 10-minute stretching session feels amazing on tight, tired muscles.​