DOMS – Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness, is the achy feeling we all know the day after we’ve hit the gym hard. However, can you exercise when you’re already feeling sore, and more importantly, is it good for you? They can be tangible proof of tour commitment to your training, but they are also a signal that the body needs to recover and it's often better not to ignore this.
It’s important to distinguish what is happening in this process within your body. Post-workout muscle pain is not always the same as DOMS. Often this is because of the lactic acid that builds up within muscles during prolonged exercise and not this more serious pain. So, what is it that is causing this pain even days after training? Micro-tears and damage to muscle tissues.
Fatigue/cramp vs DOMS
Acidification of the cell with lactic acid secreted during anaerobic work of any given muscle occurs during training and causes the characteristic burning / contraction of that muscle we all know well. There is no doubt that these hurts. The trained muscle loses strength, and eventually even the ability to contract or be controlled. Often, we refer to this as ‘muscle failure’. However, often this soreness passes in a minute or two, and all lactic acid produced during training is removed from the muscles themselves within two hours after training and transported to the liver, where gluconeogenesis takes place - the process of converting lactic acid into glycogen.
This is completely different to DOMS. Usually this begins anything up to 24 hours after exercise and can last up to 96 hours after a training session. Pain is felt during the most ordinary activities and is related to the regeneration of the damaged muscle fibers damaged during training. So the question that is the subject of this article should be:
Should we train whilst suffering with DOMS?
The answer is yes, but with some caveats.
If the pain is so bad that it makes it difficult to move and perform daily activities, or even make you feel feverish, there is no point in exercising. It will be difficult to accurately control any effort since crouching or bending down causes pain. Better to postpone training for another day and go for a walk instead.
The rule is simple: if after 2-3 days we are not able to perform the same activities that DOMS caused, it means that we have overexerted ourselves during training and overestimated our strength. Our next training must be planned a differently to accommodate this.
Next time we train, take special care not only of the intensity of training and form, but also of what is equally important for our body - hydration and quality of sleep, compliance with the daily work and rest rhythm, a diet providing the building blocks necessary for regeneration, and careful muscle stretching after training.
Can DOMS be avoided?
They cannot be fully avoided because they are the body's natural reaction to the "destruction" of muscles. However, you can make them less annoying, and they can cease being a reason for avoiding training or giving up.
Exercise your muscle groups more often and lighter
Once a week, intense fatigue of one part of the muscles guarantees pain. You need to exercise your muscles more often and less intensively to get used to a given stimulus. Training heavy, but rarely, essentially increases your likelihood of suffering DOMS
Do not train "till you drop"
Training is designed to develop muscles, not to constantly test their capabilities. In fact, exercising "to failure’’ serves no purpose, and is a straightforward path to a painful and prolonged recovery. When doing sets, leave yourself a reserve of strength for two or three more repetitions. Instead, do an extra set after a while. The effect will be much better. This training is called Reps In Reserve – RiR
Take care of your ranges of motion and form
Starting a set and jumping right to a heavy weight without pre-training and dynamic stretching is a terrible idea. It is not known why many people think that the muscle remembers the range of motion from the previous training, which took place a few days earlier. It doesn’t. First, practice the movements dry, without weight, then, warm up to your working sets in increments.
Always stretch after training
Just as warming up is the first part of your training, stretching is the end of your training. This must not be neglected. Since the whole training was about performing muscle contractions under load, we need to reverse the process a bit and help the muscles stretch again.
Bottom Line: While many coaches and trainers believe that there is no real training without pain, voluntary dedication to DOMS doesn't really serve anything, and can upset your entire training plan.