DOMS..

Hello Monday !!  Hope you all had a wonderful weekend.  Mine was very busy.  Today I thought I would talk about DOMS.  Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness.  Many of my clients who started back training in the last couple of weeks and my new runners group clients have mentioned their sore muscles.

So what is DOMS?

DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) is the pain and or stiffness felt in muscles hours, even days after strenuous exercise or basically after any exercise that you are not used to doing.  For me, and generally most people i feel it most strongly 24 to 48 hrs after the exercise.  Especially if I have trained legs.  It is basically a symptom of muscle damage caused by exercise of an eccentric nature.  i.e.. lengthening of the muscle.

After such exercise the muscles adapt quite quickly to prevent muscle damage and soreness if the exercise is repeated.  The soreness is one of a dull, aching pain in the muscle and is felt generally when the muscle is stretched, contracted or under pressure and not when you are at rest.

The duration varies with different exercises and different people.  The soreness generally increase around 24 hours after the exercise and can increase in intensity up to 48 to 72 hours after the exercise.

I generally train legs once a week because I'm so sore for half the week afterwards, sometimes struggling to walk down the stairs :) I find the best treatment for me to alleviate the soreness is to stretch, stretch , stretch and hot showers.  I also now use a foam roller to knead out all the tightness and I use this as a cool down after my workouts which helps actually reduce soreness after a heavy weights session.  Radox baths to relax the muscles work wonders for many people.

Everybody is different though, so trying different ways to relieve the soreness until you find something that suits you is the way to go.

Have a great week!!