DOM DOM DOM. . . The horrors of post-exercise muscle soreness explained.
Exercise, the magic ‘feel good’ potion we all know and love! Well... Mostly. We would be leading you astray if we told you it felt good ALL the time.
Anyone who’s engaged in exercise of a challenging nature, will recall the next day feeling of “what have I done?” - and those who know it all too well, “if it’s bad today, what will tomorrow feel like!?”
DOMS, or ‘delayed onset muscle soreness’, is the term used to describe this phenomenon.
So why do our muscles hurt after we work them? Is it good, is it bad? Does it ever get better? Seeing as us exercise physiologists are guilty of inflicting these feelings from time to time, we figured it was only right to provide some justification as to why...
The physiology behind DOMS
When we perform certain exercises for the first time, or exercise that is more intense then we are used to, it can cause tiny, microscopic tears in our muscle fibres. This is because of the way that the muscle fibres lengthen and shorten as we work them. Contracting a muscle causes the fibres to bunch together, and lengthening the muscle causes the fibres to slide apart. These tiny tears cause an inflammatory response to occur in the muscles - this raises the flags for our repair cells to head to the damaged fibres and work their magic (magic that unfortunately, hurts a little bit!). The soreness gets worse at 48 hours, because that’s how long it takes for our inflammatory response to kick in, and can last up to 72 hours!
Is it good... Or is it bad?
As bad as it sounds, you know, “tearing our muscle fibres” and all, this process is actually a normal and important part of getting stronger. When our muscle fibres are damaged in this way, they not only return to their normal state, but grow bigger, stronger, and more durable in the process. Which overtime, means that similar stressors shouldn't have the same effect. How does the saying go? “The comeback is always stronger than the setback”.
It’s important to say though, we shouldn't feel this way all the time. Your muscles need time to recover and if we load them like this repetitively, it can become detrimental. Hence consistency with your training, and with your recovery days, is key! Let your muscles get used to a certain load before increasing it and, overtime, you should find that you only experience DOMS after making significant increases in training load.
Help! Walking up the stairs hurts!
Sick of cringing every time you sit on the toilet? Here are a few things you can do to help prevent DOMS from occurring in the first place (or speed up the recovery process if you’re already struggling!).
Stretch
Stretching after your exercise session can help to speed up the repair process! Plus maintaining flexibility in the long-term can reduce the likelihood of DOMS by preventing unwanted shortening of fibres.
Massage / foam rolling
As you can imagine, foam rolling with sore muscles would definitely be considered tough love! But it can help increase blood supply to the fibres in need of RnR, bringing with it all the good stuff needed to repair the tears.
Walk it off
As much as those first few steps may hurt, you’ll feel your tight muscles start to loosen up in no time! Warmth and blood flow (like above) are your friends in this scenario.
So there you go, there is some truth in “no pain, no gain” after all!
Experiencing DOMS from time to time is not a bad thing and there are things you can do to reduce its terror. Just make sure you give your body the recovery it needs between challenges and stick at it! Like most things, it gets better with time.
Starting a new exercise regime for the first time? Check out our article: New to Exercise? Here’s What to Expect.
Author: Tessa Nielsen 
