YOUR GUIDE TO DOMS
You’ve absolutely crushed a workout, but now you’re finding you are suffering even more than when you were in the workout. You’ve done a big leg day and now you can’t even walk down a flight of stairs? Or hit your arms hard and can’t even put on a t-shirt? You probably have DOMS. Although this level of soreness might sound like something you’d want to avoid, they aren’t necessarily a bad indication.
What Are DOMS?
Delayed-Onset Muscle Soreness, also known as DOMS generally set in 24 to 48 hours after an intense workout. When you put stress on your muscles you create micro-tears in your muscles, this is completely normal and the rebuilding of those fibres is how muscles strengthen and grow. The reason why DOMS have a delay coming is that inflammation comes in gradually, which means it takes a day or two for it to peak at the greatest amount of soreness. The increased blood flow, proteins and hormones to damaged cells all work towards healing the damaged muscles, but this inflammation creates pressure on the structures in the areas of the affected muscles, which is what causes the pain - the core of DOMS.
The more challenging the workout, the more of those tiny muscles tears you are likely to have and the greater the chance of DOMS setting in. They can also occur when you begin training a new muscle group that might have never experienced intense movement before. On the flip side, if you go for a light jog, you probably won’t experience them, it is only highly intensive workouts that will create them. It is also important to note that you don’t need to feel DOMS to know you’ve worked out hard enough. Depending on your own body and where you are at in your fitness journey, you might train to full capacity but your tears are smaller and therefore the inflammation is smaller and you won’t feel DOMS at all.
How To Treat Them?
Don’t just hit those same sore muscles again with another tough workout. You are more likely to injure yourself, as you put more pressure on the surrounding muscles to compensate for the sore ones. But you also don’t want to sit still and just ‘rest’, to some extent you do need to push through it. Some easy treatments to help with DOMS include low-impact activities to loosen your muscles up like a short walk, swim, foam rolling and stretching. By working through your DOMS you can continue working out effectively and to your full capacity.
