Preventing Muscle Soreness During Competition Week

I had a client recently send me the events for an upcoming comp they're doing and across a single day we're looking at 250 squat repetitions mixed between WB / Thrusters / Lunges / BJO. They wanted to know what they can do to prevent muscle soreness and preserve performance.

The answer is that you probably cannot eliminate soreness completely, especially if the event has a lot of eccentric loading, high volume, unfamiliar movements, or repeated hard efforts across multiple days.

But you can reduce the likelihood that soreness becomes performance-limiting.

Here are the tools I recommended:

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1. Good training principles are still the foundation

The best soreness prevention strategy is smart progressive exposure.

If the competition is going to demand high volume, high density, heavy eccentrics, running, GHDs, lunges, DB cycling, CTB, or repeated contractions in a pattern you are not used to, then we want as much exposure to those demands before the competition as is safe and possible given your timeline.

That does not mean crushing yourself every training day leading in. It means giving the body enough of a preview that the competition is not the first time your tissues see that stress. This is why event / weekend simulations can be valuable.

A well-timed simulation gives you:

movement exposure
pacing feedback
confidence
tissue preparation
a better understanding of where soreness may show up

This is also why we want to avoid big “new” training inputs too close to competition. It increases the injury risk and can leave you in a compromised state at the event.

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2. BFR / IPC can be a powerful pre-event tool

BFR IPC, blood flow restriction ischemic preconditioning, is one of the better tools we have for preparing the body before a high-output event.

The goal is to create a short, controlled ischemic exposure that may activate protective mechanisms before hard exercise. Think of it as a “preconditioning signal” to the tissue.

In practice, this can help some athletes feel more ready, less heavy, and potentially less beat up after the event.

This is one of the reasons I like using BFR IPC before events that are likely to create a lot of leg damage, CNS stress, or repeated competition-day fatigue.

If anyone wants to learn more, let me know and I'll share the IPC section of my BFR manual here.

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3. Cold water immersion can help short-term soreness and competition recovery

Post-workout cold water immersion can reduce the perception of soreness in the short term. More importantly for competition, it can help bring body temperature down and may help preserve performance when you have multiple events across a day or weekend.

This matters most when:

the event is hot
the event is very glycolytic
you have multiple events in one day
you need to feel “reset” quickly
overheating is a limiter
leg heaviness is building across the weekend

The goal is not always “maximum cold for maximum time.”

In competition, the goal is usually to cool down, reduce the soreness signal, and come out feeling better for the next event. Our goal is NOT to turn the ice bath into another stressor.

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4. NSAIDs can reduce pain/inflammation, but should be timed carefully

Ibuprofen and other NSAIDs can reduce pain and inflammation, and some athletes use them around competition for this reason.

That said, I would not treat them as a casual soreness-prevention supplement.

They can have downsides, especially if used frequently, at high doses, during dehydration, during long endurance events, or in athletes with kidney, GI, cardiovascular, blood pressure, or medication-related risk factors.

Here is a great review paper on the topic:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32346802/

So the better framing is:

NSAIDs may be useful in specific situations, but they should be used intentionally not automatically.

For most athletes, training exposure, fueling, hydration, sleep, cooling, and BFR IPC should be the first-line tools.

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5. Antihistamines are interesting, but still experimental for this use

Antihistamines are another interesting category because histamine is involved in blood flow, inflammation, and cellular signaling after exercise.

There is some research showing that blocking histamine signaling can change the inflammatory response after exercise. But this does not mean everyone should start taking allergy medicine to prevent soreness.

This is more of an “emerging / interesting mechanism” than a standard recommendation.

Also, antihistamines can affect people differently. Some can cause sedation, dry mouth, altered thermoregulation, or other side effects that may not be helpful on competition day.

So I would put this in the category of:

Interesting, potentially useful in specific cases, but not something to experiment with for the first time during competition week.

Another good review paper on the topic of histamine in exercise:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5161583/

And the paper dealing specifically with histamine & muscle soreness:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27493198/

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The practical hierarchy

If your goal is to reduce soreness and stay ready across a competition weekend, I would think about it in this order:

Smart training exposure before the event
Avoiding big novel inputs too close to competition
BFR IPC before key events
Cooling / ice bath after events when appropriate
Aggressive refueling and hydration
Sleep and nervous system downregulation
NSAIDs only when appropriate and medically safe
Antihistamines only if already tolerated and there is a clear reason to use them

The biggest takeaway:

Soreness prevention starts before competition week. The tools help, but the foundation is exposing the body to the right stress early enough that competition does not become a completely novel tissue-damage event.

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