You know that post-exercise muscle pain you get? The one that makes you feel as though you’ve been battered with a baseball bat? The one that make getting off the toilet an actual mission? It’s called DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness). In this article we’re going to look at DOMS, what it is, why you get it and how you can ease it.
There has been a lot of debate over DOMS in Sports Science circles - for many years its origins were unknown. Some scientists argue that we still don’t know the exact source of them, but we do know fair amount. We know for example that DOMS is likely to be a series of micro-tears in the muscle tissue that occur during training.
These micro-tears are tiny wounds that occur at a cellular level when we break down the muscle tissue during exercise. As they repair themselves, they form scar tissue. Movement of the muscles during this repair process is agitating the scar tissue, causing the pain.
It only occurs after exercise rather than during it, hence the ‘Delayed Onset’ Muscle Soreness.
Why do we get DOMS?
The main answer is above - we get it via muscle tissue breakdown during exercise. When we disrupt the repair process, it causes soreness. But that’s not the whole picture.
DOMS occurs through a chance of stimulus, not just workout intensity. For example, say you are really ‘gym fit’, which means your body is used to lifting heavy weights, pushing prowlers, doing pull ups etc regularly and then you go out for a 10km run, expect to get pretty serious DOMS.
It’s not that you weren’t fit before, it’s because you’ve changed your stimulus. Your body can deal with the weights and prowlers because it’s used to it. Make it do something it’s not used to, in this case running, and it’ll suffer as a result!
The good news is that your body is adaptable, so whatever you expose your body to regularly, it gets used to. That’s why you don’t exist in a permanent state of soreness every time you go to the gym.
There are other ways we can create DOMS, even if we are doing things we’re used to. What we have to do is create a change in stimulus again. One of the most common ways we can do this is via a technique called ‘negatives’.
In a given lift, say bench press, there are two phases - the ‘positive’ or ‘concentric’ phase (pushing the bar away from you) and the ‘negative’ or ‘eccentric’ phase (returning the bar to your chest). If you slow down your negative phase to a count of 5 seconds, you’ll prolong the eccentric muscle contraction and create more ‘damage’ than normal. This will likely result in more acute DOMS.
DOMS is NOT Indicative of a Good Workout
One of the things that needs to be cleared up is that DOMS is not a sign of a good workout. OK, it’s sometimes strangely nice to feel soreness after a workout, but don’t confuse how sore you are with how hard you’ve trained - that’s not a good measuring stick.
You can create DOMS simply by doing something your body isn’t used to, or by doing a lot of really slow, eccentric training. If that’s not in line with your training goals though, it’s a waste of time. All you’d be is sore and stiff - no closer to hitting your goals.
How do you get rid of DOMS?
There’s good news and bad news here! Let’s start with the bad news…
You can’t get rid of DOMS, it just doesn't work like that. Your body needs time to repair itself and any movement during that time will be a bit sore. It’s rarely anything more than a bit uncomfortable, despite what people may say. Nobody ever died from DOMS!
The good news is that there are things you can do to ease the discomfort and speed up the healing process. Here’s a few of them…
Consume protein straight after a workout. Research shows that post-exercise protein consumption helps to speed up recovery and reduce DOMS.
Sauna use helps. Again, research has shown that exposure to heat post exercise can help to ease the feelings of DOMS. If you can’t get to a sauna, a hot bath will have a similar effect.
There are recovery clothing lines that evidence shows can improve recovery. These are scientifically proven, not some marketing nonsense.
Sleep! One of the key aspects of recovery is sleep. If you train hard, don’t try to get by on 5 hours of sleep per night. Shoot for 7-10.
Drink plenty of water. Drinking water has a massive knock-on effect for overall physiology. Muscle tissue is around 65-70% water, so stay hydrated and it’ll keep muscle tissue healthy.
As sore as you are with DOMS, it’s still a good idea to keep moving. It’s not a reason to stop exercising, so make sure you remain active throughout. Even if you need to adapt what you’re doing, don’t use DOMS as a reason to skip exercising. You want to stay as active as you can throughout (and follow our tips!)
One final thing…
Jump on my Home Workout Classes
To help the AdMac Fitness members stay on top of their fitness whilst under lockdown, I’m offering two online zoom sessions a week. These are held on Monday’s and Thursday’s, 6.30-7.30pm.
Each class is £5 and free for NHS staff members.
To enrol, send me an email or WhatsApp (click the link and it’ll let you do it) and I’ll send you the meeting number and passcode to access the session.
AdMac Fitness is keeping the world active during this, you can rely on us!
If you’re looking for personal training in East London, get in touch!
At AdMac Fitness we’re not about fads, fashions and short term fixes. We want you to succeed properly over the long term, so with our help and advice you can get your fitness back on track! If you’d like us to help you, contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!
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