Understanding Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS)

Posted by jenaisle on April 6, 2010

By:  Arvie C. Vitente , MPH, PTRP

Have you ever experienced severe muscle pain few days after a serious workout? DOMS or delayed onset muscle soreness might be a reason for that. It differs from acute muscle soreness in a sense that it can be felt few days following a heavy exercise. Some researches state that DOMS is caused by accumulation of lactic acid in muscle tissues, which usually happens in persons doing heavy exercises especially body builders and athletes. But recently, professionals are explaining that DOMS is caused by microtear on skeletal muscles due to heavy exercise.

When would you say that you are experiencing DOMS?

Exercise physiologists do believe that it is DOMS when one experienced muscle soreness 24-48 hours after the exercise especially if the pain has an increasing intensity.

What are the major causes of DOMS?

• Lactic acid accumulation in muscles because of too much workout on muscle is the primary cause of DOMS.
• Tissue breakdown may also be the cause of DOMS. Biopsy studies of athletes especially runners were found to have more muscle destruction.  The cell membrane or sarcolemma of muscle cells will be destroyed causing its cell content to leak out between each muscle fiber.
• Inflammatory process – after heavy exercise or strenuous activity, white blood cell count has been shown to increase. This led to the conclusion that DOMS is also caused by inflammatory processes.

Training with DOMS

Exercising more the muscles affected with DOMS will have no effect in terms of reinforcement process. Therefore, training is not recommended in muscles with DOMS as this may provoke the microtearing of muscle fascia.

How to reduce the effect of DOMS?

There is no method in present time that will speed up the recovery of the skeletal muscle from DOMS but massage showed varying effects in DOMS considering the of time of massage, the duration of massage and the type of massage being utilized. Intake of Vitamin C is believed to play a role in repairing damaged connective tissues. However, this has not been proven yet, besides intake of vitamin C in large amounts can even cause harmful effects. Lately, studies show that a protease supplement plays a major role in prevention and recovery from DOMS.

Who can experience DOMS?

Everyone can experience DOMS, but athletes, body builders and workers who need intense muscle contractions are the ones prone to experience DOMS, especially for the beginners who are unaware of the importance of warm-up and cool-down.

What is the best way to prevent DOMS?

Still, the best way to prevent DOMS is stretching before strenuous activities are made. Keep in mind that you need to warm-up for five to ten minutes before a serious workout and cool-down for five to ten minutes as well to help in the prevention of DOMS. Stretching as mentioned above would be a good form of warm-up and cool-down.

Remember that exercising is very good for our health but you need to consider exercise in proper way to prevent damages in the different tissues in the body especially the skeletal muscles. You have to learn the different causes of DOMS for you to learn how to prevent it from occurring. Always keep in mind that DOMS would lead to being less productive in work which affects your work performance in general. Let us all be DOMS-free!