DOMS - Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness

Ever had sore muscles for a few days after exercising too hard?  Well, that's called delayed onset muscle soreness, and it's due to exercise causing changes in your muscles.  It normally lasts from 2-10 days, and often the pain peaks in the period 24-48 hours.  Surprisingly it's not caused by lactic acid in the muscles and blood, although many people incorrectly believe this.  There is a relationship in that intense exercise usually causes more severe DOMS, and also can cause immediate and acute pain due to lactate build-up, but the lactate and DOMS are otherwise not directly related.  Lactate is usually processed and returned to normal levels within 30-90 minutes of exercise by your body, whilst DOMS will start to affect you perhaps between 12 hours to three days after the exercise and lasts for much longer.

How to reduce the severity of DOMS:

• Only increase your training slowly and steadily.  Don't make major changes in the type or amount of exercise you're doing.
• Don't start training intensely when you've been inactive for a period.
• Always warm up and cool down properly.

If you're already suffering from sore muscles:

• Rest the muscles - they're sore because they've been worked hard, and need to recover.
• Learn from the experience.  Adjust your future training to reduce the volume and/or intensity of the training that caused the DOMS.
• Perform very light recovery exercise for a short period the day after an intense session - this will promote blood flow and help repair faster.

Links

Here's some more reading on DOMS:

http://health.iafrica.com/fitness/running/doms.htm

Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness

Disclaimer - always treat muscle pain with care and be sure to consult a doctor if you suspect an injury.

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