If you’re training hard, starting a lifting regimen, or performing
an activity that you haven’t in years (running, for example), you will more
than likely encounter some muscle soreness. This soreness is referred to in the
nerdy science community as delayed onset of muscle soreness, or “DOMS” for
short. I often hear misconceptions about what DOMS is and what should be done
about it. Let’s address these by going over some commonly believed myths.
Myth #1: Muscle soreness is caused by a buildup of
lactic acid in your muscles.
This is one of the most common misunderstandings about DOMS
that I hear. While lactic acid does build up in your muscles during physical
activity, it clears out of your muscles in a matter of seconds to minutes.
Lactic acid is used by your muscles to regulate contraction, and will start to
shut down the muscle when it begins to accumulate. This safety mechanism-called
a lactate threshold-protects your muscles from overexertion, preventing you
from getting to the point where you will injure yourself. The lactate threshold
is the point at which your body cannot clear the lactic acid as fast as it is
being produced and it begins to build up. Fortunately this threshold can be
adjusted with training, giving you the ability to perform exercises at a higher
intensity for a longer duration of time.
Myth #2: If you’re sore you should rest and not move.
I’ll keep this one simple and say this is the exact opposite
of what you want to do. More on this below.
So what is the truth
about DOMS?
DOMS really just refers to micro tears in the muscles
themselves. That soreness you are feeling is legitimately damage to the muscle,
which makes you feel achy and sore. Here’s where it gets interesting: Even
though there is micro structural damage to the area, it’s not necessarily a bad
thing. It just depends on what you do and how you treat it, so here are some
rules when dealing with muscle soreness…
Rule #1: DON’T TAKE ANTI-INFLAMATORIES!
Having micro tears in your muscles causes an inflammatory
response. Here’s the catch though: this inflammatory response is a GOOD thing,
so don’t interrupt it by taking anti-inflammatories. Inflammation is part of
the natural healing process, which progresses from inflammation to
proliferation to remodeling. I won’t get too much into that process because
then we’d be going down the rabbit hole of details. All you need to know is
that you can’t skip over that step and expect your body to do what it needs to
do.
*Note: This is for general muscle soreness and not any other
medical conditions that may include injury.
If you shouldn’t take
anti-inflammatories, then what should you do?
Rule #2: Keep moving!
MOVE, MOVE, MOVE! You
need to get blood flow to the muscles that need to repair themselves! Sitting
around on your bum isn’t going to help you here, nor will it help you out in
many other circumstances. Get up and take action.
Moving around drives blood flow to the area in need of
repair. My favorite way to explain this is to imagine that you are trying to
repair a building. The building needs materials to be repaired, so a delivery
truck needs to bring some materials. The delivery truck is your blood, the
materials are all the nutrients that you are eating, and the building is your
muscles. The only way to get the blood/trucks to the building is to get the
blood moving. How do you get the blood moving? Move around, walk, perform light
activity…anything that gets the heart rate up a little bit and gets the blood pumping
throughout your body. The muscles will begin to heat up, loosen, and
blood/nutrients will be getting to the area to help repair and recover your
precious muscle, making them grow and become stronger than before.
Rule #3: Don’t over-train!
If you’re already sore, don’t try and continue to train the
next day and compound on the soreness for those muscle groups. You will not
give your body enough time to repair and you will be digging yourself into a
hole that is increasingly harder to get out of. Having better recovery
practices, which I have talked about in
Do You Have Good Recovery Practices, will help you more efficiently bounce
back between bouts of training. The more experienced and well-trained you are,
the better your body will be able to repair, adjust, and adapt to the training
load you place on it. This is why training sessions get progressively harder
over time and your workload can increase. However, ramping up your workload and
increasing your ability to recover between bouts of training takes time. Don’t rush
it; it all comes with time and proper training programs.
I hope that this has been informative and has helped you
better understand the reasons behind DOMS and how to combat it. I’d love some
feedback, so if you could leave a comment about what you think about the
article it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Ryan Goodell, CSCS
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