Today’s workout was incredible – I was riding a wave of energy and feeling super-charged for tomorrow’s session!
However, as the day went on, a sense of laziness crept in, and my muscles began to stiffen, with a hint of pain starting to emerge. Despite going to bed with a bit of discomfort, I hoped for the best. Yet, waking up the next morning was a whole different story. My muscles weren’t just sore; they were aching profoundly, forcing me to skip today’s workout.
I found myself wondering, “Why am I in so much pain and feeling so inflamed?” It turns out, what I’m experiencing is known as DOMS—delayed onset muscle soreness. This type of muscle pain and soreness doesn’t show up during or right after your workout but hits you a day later. Sometimes called “muscle fever,” it’s a common response to a vigorous exercise routine and doesn’t signal anything seriously wrong.
So, no need to panic! This discomfort, although unpleasant, is a normal part of the workout recovery process and isn’t linked to any long-term harm.
What Happens to Muscles During DOMS?
Muscle soreness occurs when we use a specific body part more than usual. For example, on chest day, we perform multiple focused exercises to challenge the chest area, or take, for instance, a marathon you ran; the next day, your whole body was in pain as you exerted beyond your capability, using your lower body muscles.
Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness can affect anyone engaging in physical activities such as strength training, resistance training, CrossFit, and running. When muscles are subjected to stress and strain through intense exercises there can be temporary damage on our muscle fibers, ligaments, and tendons. DOMS symptoms like pain, swelling, or stiffness typically occur at least 12 to 24 hours after an exercise and peak about one to three days later; after that, all the symptoms subside. During strenuous physical activities, our muscle fibers sustain tiny microscopic tears, leading to temporary muscle damage. The body’s response to this damage often involves inflammation and soreness.
The way you exercise – how hard, how often, and which parts of your body you focus on – plays a significant role in determining if you’ll experience DOMS and how intense that experience will be.
Here are a few common DOMS symptoms:
- Sore, aching, painful feeling in the muscle
- Reduced range of motion of the specific body part trained
- Stiffness in muscles when moving and walking
- Muscle weakness and fatigue
- Muscles may feel soft
Pain and Progress
While pain is an integral aspect of training and progress in the world of workouts, it’s crucial to approach it with wisdom. Recognizing the difference between beneficial discomfort and harmful pain is key to achieving long-term success and maintaining overall health in any athletic or fitness journey.
What is Acute Muscle Soreness (AMS)?
Contrary to DOMS, acute muscle soreness (AMS) is the pain felt in muscles during the exercise or immediately after finishing the workout set. It is like a burning sensation that occurs in the targeted muscles during the activity. During physical activities like strength training, tension, and stress are put on localized muscles by performing stretching and contracting of the muscle group (another term is muscle pumping).
During exercise, especially activities that intensely engage muscles, there is an enhanced demand for oxygen and nutrients in the active muscle tissues. In response, blood vessels dilate, allowing more blood to flow into the muscles. This short-term feeling of soreness and increased muscle size during your workout is the result of blood filling the area. Pain gets intense during rigorous workouts but starts to disappear as muscles relax or the exercise is stopped.
How to deal with Delayed onset Muscle soreness (DOMS)
Below mentioned DOMS treatment strategies will help your muscles recover fast, get restored to a balanced state, and function optimally as soon as possible.
1. Think About a Recovery Plan
Muscle recovery is as important as exercising. If your muscles do not recover swiftly, you will not be ready to perform the next day, and you will have more chances of getting injured in your next workout.
Prepare your muscles to relax and heal with the strategies mentioned below:
Massage – Massage is a tremendous way to relax. When a massage is performed, pressure is applied to the muscles. Applying mechanical pressure simply by pressing, rubbing, squeezing, or kneading the body part with fingers, elbows, hands, or a massage device can help relieve tightness or tension in the muscles. Massage increases blood circulation to congested areas and brings oxygen-rich blood to the damaged muscles as needed for healing. For example, a deep tissue massage can also help flush out toxins and cellular debris.
Stretching – One thing every athlete should do before and after exercise is stretching. Stretching makes muscles more flexible, increases the range of motion, strengthens them, and keeps muscles overall healthy. Everyday stretching will dramatically affect your muscle well-being, with results like enhanced performance, decreased risk of injuries, and limited signs of DOMS.
Physiotherapy – Physiotherapy encompasses various treatments but cannot be performed by the individual; only healthcare professionals known as physiotherapists can guide and suggest these treatments. Electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) therapy, magnetic therapy, and acupuncture are a few therapies to restore muscle mobility, function, and well-being. If it is not possible to regularly visit physiotherapists, try to have a session every month or quarterly; this way, you will have professional help.
2. Non-inflammatory Foods Will Help
Start eating foods that are rich in inflammation-fighting nutrients. Vitamin C, vitamin E, and phytochemicals such as carotenoids and polyphenols have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. Include them in your diet and fitness regime to maximize recovery from soreness.
Foods that attribute to antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties:
- Ginger and turmeric
- Avocados and olive oil
- Fatty fish like trout, mackerel, tuna, herring, sardines, and salmon.
- Fruits such as tomatoes, Pineapple, Bananas, strawberries, blueberries, cherries, and oranges.
- Green leafy vegetables such as spinach, kale, and collards.
- Nuts like almonds, hazelnuts, and walnuts.
3. Non-steroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs
NSAIDs and Painkillers are a class of medications called analgesics used to relieve pain, lower fever, and reduce inflammation. The three Most Common Types of NSAIDs are Aspirin, Naproxen, and Ibuprofen. Though NSAIDs are OTC (Over-the-counter) medicines but still on the safer side, have a word with your physician before taking them. Try to heal DOMS with natural methods, only use NSAIDs if the pain is uncontrollable and elevating.
4. Topical Analgesics
Topical analgesics are applied to the skin over painful muscles or joints that help in pain reduction. These are available over the counter as pain-relieving creams, patches, lotions, rubs, gels, and in the form of sprays. Topical analgesics work by decreasing inflammation and pain in a localized area of the body where applied. Do take care while applying them and do not overdo them, also completely avoid applying them on sensitive areas of the body, cuts, or skin wounds.
5. You May Need More Rest
Psychological or physiological, rest and recovery is an essential part of any workout routine, it re-energizes your muscles by keeping your body and mind fresh. During the workout, our muscle tissue breaks down and muscles need rest to repair these broken tissues. Muscles can only grow, strengthen, and recover when they get proper rest. You can only perform better in your next workout if you are fully recovered from the previous one, with sore muscles you cannot have a quality workout and you will feel lethargic the whole time. Don’t overdo it, try to cut back your workout intensity and take a minimum of two days off a week. If our body is signaling tiredness, fatigue, or lack of concentration that means it’s time to take off and have some rest.
6. Reduction in Intensity and Duration of Exercise
Don’t push your body to the level that your recovery halts, high-intensity workouts challenge your body to the level that sometimes the body stops recovering or takes extra time to get settled. High-intensity exercises put a lot of stress on your muscles, tendons, and bones, which can be a reason leading to injuries. Our muscles recover from everyday wear and tear naturally but continuous push and strenuous targeted muscle training can bring more negative symptoms to the body rather than improvements.
7. Hot and Cold Pack Therapy
Alternate between ice therapy that is used to reduce inflammation, and heat therapy to improve blood flow. Cold treatment reduces inflammation by decreasing blood flow and heat treatment promotes blood flow and helps muscles relax. Both are different therapies and can be used alternatively (Don’t alternate hot and cold immediately) to get the maximum benefits. This hot and cold therapy strategy can significantly soothe aching, reduce stiffness in joints, and reduce inflammation and swelling. Extremely effective and easily affordable household items like packs, towels, water dip, sprays, or wax can be used to perform the therapy.
Understanding Muscle Recovery
After the initial inflammatory response, the body begins repairing the damaged muscle fibers. This process involves the removal of damaged cells, the fusion of muscle fibers to repair tears, and the production of new muscle protein strands (myofibrils) to strengthen the muscle. Over time, this repair and adaptation process makes the muscle more resilient to future damage, a phenomenon known as the “repeated-bout effect.”
As a result of the repair process, muscles adapt by increasing in strength and, potentially, size (hypertrophy), depending on the type of exercise and overall training program. This adaptation is essential for progressive resistance training and improving physical performance.
It’s important to note that while DOMS can be uncomfortable, it is generally not a cause for concern and typically resolves on its own within a week. Effective DOMS management strategies provide relief. Progressively increasing the intensity of workouts and incorporating adequate rest days help minimize the severity of DOMS as the body adapts to new or increased levels of physical activity.
When to Worry?
Sometimes DOMS symptoms may get worse with time, if the above treatments don’t work then kindly visit a doctor to check everything is good. Uncontrolled and widespread aching or stiffness in soft tissues, including muscles, tendons, and ligaments can also point to some other serious hidden injury that may be triggered by your active routine. If injury is serious just think of all these strategies as first aid and seek immediate professional help to reduce the complications.