This post is entitled What to do about Muscle Soreness Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness.
What to do about Muscle Soreness Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness
Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness or DOMS is the soreness that you have experienced after you exercise. You may feel it the next day, or later that evening or maybe not even for a couple of days.
In a sick sort of way, most people who workout on a regular basis actually love the pain. I fall into this category; but for most of my readers, this is the reason they don’t like to workout….PAIN. Yes it hurts, and if you have any sort of effective workout, you are going to get it. Here is what you can do about it.
Signs of Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness
There is a good chance you have DOMS if you are experiencing any of these symptoms:
- Loss of range of motion
- Pain
- Swelling
- Muscles Spasms
- Muscle twitching
- Stiffness
You won’t necessarily have all of these symptoms, and it varies from person to person, but you will get at least 2 of these symptoms. I personally get all of them plus some additional symptoms.
Usually these symptoms come between 24 to 48 hours after you exercise. Usually, the pain will last between 3 or 4 days, and then taper off. If your muscle soreness is lasting longer than that, then it may be time to see your physician.
What to do about Muscle Soreness Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness
Signs you need to see your physician and you may NOT have DOMS.
DOMS lasts usually about 3 or 4 days then it starts to taper off. However, if you start to lose range of motion (ROM) after 3 or 4 days then you may not have DOMS and it may be time to see your doctor.
There is a good chance you do NOT have DOMS if you are experiencing DOMS after 4 days or so if you have any of the following symptoms:
- Bruising or Swelling
- Reduced Range of Motion (ROM)
- Throbbing pain even when you are just resting
- Sharp pains at rest or when you are just resting
- Unable to lift weight
Any of these signs may mean a more serious muscle, tendon or ligament problem and need to be checked out by your physician.
Causes of DOMS
The actual cause of Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness is still unknown, but there are two schools of thought.
- Lactic acid – Lactic acid is that burn you feel in your muscle when you are exercising for long periods of time = Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness
- Muscles Tears – whenever you workout what you’re actually doing is tearing down the muscle so it will rebuild itself and grow back stronger, this is why bodybuilders take in an obscene amount of protein to speed up this muscle repair. =DOMS
Scientists have not really figured out what causes DOMS but these are the top 2 current theories.
*Delaying* the effects of Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness
There are a couple of techniques to delay the effects of DOMS; however, I don’t believe there is a prevention technique because whenever you exercise…I mean really exercise . . . then you are going to break down muscle tissue, and when you break down muscle tissue, you are going to hurt; there is no way around it.
Here are some proven Clinical ways to delay the effects of Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness
Compression – A study was done in 2001 by the Human Performance Lab at Ball State University which found that wearing some sort of compression sleeve helps with DOMS.
Ice – A study published in the 1999 Journal of Sport Sciences found that icing your muscles for 15 minutes immediately after exercise reduced the effects of DOMS.
Warm-up – Probably the most overlooked way to prevent DOMS is to warm-up. This is usually a problem for people who are new to exercising and tend to go too hard too fast and don’t get their core temperatures up to an acceptable range before exercising. A general guideline is to warm-up 10 minutes prior to strenuous exercise.
So there you have it – warm-up, ice and compression will help you with those post exercise muscle pains.
This concludes my post on What to do about Muscle Soreness Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness.
