Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) is a common side effect of physical activity. DOMS does not discriminate. It can show up in individuals ranging from Olympic athletes to the weekend warrior. This soreness is the bodies response to unfamiliar or vigorous activity. Many consider DOMS to be a great indicator of training effectiveness and it is necessary for every training program. I am not one of those people!
So what causes DOMS? We do not know for sure what causes it. There is a common perception that DOMS has something to do with lactic acid. That is not the case. Lactic acid is a by-product of exercise (like your legs burning as you bicycle uphill) and not the cause of pain following exercise. DOMS appears to be a product of inflammation caused by microscopic tears in connective tissue. So when your muscles are hurting after a workout, it does not have anything to do with "lactic acid buildup", but rather your muscles are literally damaged.
A general rule for Delayed onset muscle soreness is that it becomes evident about 6-8 hours after an exercise session and peaks at approximately 48 hours post exercise. These times are highly variable and some pain may even last up to 72 hours post-exercise. Pain associated with DOMS has been shown to negatively effect training. A damaged muscle can be tender, stiff, swollen and up to 50% weaker until it is healed. This impairs your ability to train at a high level as your movement patterns are effected and researchers speculate that this could reduce your motivation to train. If your goal is to make improvements every time you begin a training session, exercise induced muscle damage is your worst enemy. If you are on a quest for DOMS, you are putting yourself in position for a lackluster workout.
There is a belief that DOMS follows an inverted U-shaped curve. The logic of the inverted-U curve is that the same strategies that work really well at first stop working past a certain point. So lets say on day one of your workout, you do 3 sets of 12 pushups. That strategy seemed to work for the most part so you decide to double the amount of sets for workout two. Instead of doing 3 sets you do 6 and the result of that will be sore pecs for days on end. Your strategy worked day one but it hit a certain point on day two and negatively effected your training program. This indicates a failure to plan. There is no logical progression and that is a dumb idea if you need to maximize your training potential. (This is why I am not a big believer in "shocking the body" regularly or "planned randomization"). The key to controlling DOMS can be found in general progression and training consistency. Now if you repeat that workout a few more times, the soreness will dissipate. This is known as the repeated bout effect. When you repeatedly do the same exercises, you "strengthen connective tissue, increase efficiency in the recruitment of motor units, greater motor unit synchronization, a more even distribution of the workload among fibers, and/or greater contribution of synergistic fibers". So if you do a workout and it gets you pretty sore, repeat that workout the next week and I can almost guarantee you that the soreness will not be as bad as the previous week.
Is DOMS necessary? Who really knows. I have had success training with it and without it. One thing I know for sure is that you cannot use it as an indicator for progress. DOMS does not mean a thing if you are not getting stronger or adding additional lean muscle mass to your body. Progress comes from the adaptations from training (this is the period between workouts), not during the training session itself. A workout should always give you more than what it takes out of you!
Hope you enjoyed,
Chris Fluck
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