It’s important to give 100% to your workouts, but too much strain on the muscles can lead to inflammation, pain, and delayed onset muscle soreness, or DOMS, for up to 72 hours afterwards. Pushing yourself too hard without allowing your muscles to recover could lead to injuries and reduced athletic performance according to research published in Frontiers in Network Physiology.

The following strategies can effectively enhance muscle recovery and prevent injuries, ensuring you get the most out of your workouts.

According to Woman's Health, here are ways to maximize muscle recovery:

• Plan your intense workouts carefully. Timing is everything, says trainer Jason Machowsky, an exercise physiologist. Allow a 24-hour rest period for lighter workouts and 72 hours after an intense training session. Train once again after you feel recovered to keep your body adapting and growing.

• Choose active rest on recovery days. On those days when you aren’t training hard, choose gentler exercise such as yoga, stretching and lower-intensity movement to keep blood and nutrients flowing through the body to repair muscles that are recovering. Even a few minutes of gentle movement a day can do the trick.

• Get enough sleep. Sleep is crucial for muscle recovery because it’s during rest that your body repairs and strengthens itself, according to ACE Fitness. One function of sleep is to allow time for muscles to repair themselves. Growth hormone is an anabolic hormone produced during stage 3 of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) or dreamless sleep and helps to repair tissues damaged during exercise. The longer a period of sleep, the more time for muscle tissues to regenerate and grow.  Aim for 7-8 hours of quality sleep each night.

• Fuel up on carbs and protein. Consuming protein post-workout aids in the repair and growth of muscle tissues. Include lean meats, fish, eggs, dairy, and plant-based proteins in your diet. Machowsky adds that eating enough carbohydrates after your workout is important to replenish your body’s energy, or glycogen stores. He adds that pairing protein and carbs together are the best ways to fuel muscle recovery. Here are some post-workout recovery food combos to help rebuild muscle.

• Warm up, cool down and stretch. Machowsky says that a proper warmup helps ensure your body is ready to lift heavy loads, and cool downs help facilitate faster recovery time. Foam rolling helps release muscle tightness and improve blood flow to the affected areas. Spend time gently rolling out your muscles after each workout. Incorporate both static and dynamic stretching into your routine to increase flexibility and reduce muscle tension. It also helps flush out toxins and transport nutrients to your muscles.