One of the main things people often experience in the first few weeks of starting up a new exercise regime, whatever that encompasses, is soreness. But why do we get sore? Is that soreness a sign that what we are doing is working? Should you strive to achieve that soreness in every workout? These are all valid questions that I hear time and again from people who are new to the gym. So, let’s have a look to see if our aching bodies are a sign of effectiveness or if there is another way.
What is the soreness that we are experiencing?
Firstly, it would help to understand what is actually going on when we experience this post workout soreness. It would be remise not to point out that there is a significant difference between post work out soreness (what is commonly known as delayed onset muscle soreness or DOMS) and injury. Most people are able to recognise the difference between an acute injury pain, often located in a particular area, from that which is more gradual in its appearance and generally more systemic across the body or region of the body. If you think you have the former, then seeking advice from an appropriate medical professional to assess the injury is the obvious route to go (avoid being google Doctor to gain you diagnosis!) before returning to your routine. DOMS is also not the feeling that you experience during your workout or activity of lactic acid build up. This is more acute and tends to leave pretty rapidly after you finish whatever it is that you are doing.
So, what is DOMS?
DOMS or Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness is a pain that is experienced deep in the muscle and tends to arrive anywhere between 8 hours and 2-3 days after your workout or any intense physical activity. For me it is normally around day 2 and tends to be first felt when getting out of bed that morning! DOMS is likely to be mainly caused by damage (micro traumas) to the muscle. Please note the words “likely to be caused” as there is constant evolving research in this field which also suggests some involvement of other factors including a role to some degree of tissue inflammation. The deep science and causation is beyond the scope of this article but there is plenty of research available on the topic should you wish to dig deeper.
The experience of DOMS is very unique to the individual and varies due to a number of things including their training history and experience, genetics, what exercises have been done and how often and how hard they have pushed the workout. Nutrition and in particular hydration appears to play a significant role along with adequate rest and recovery periods.
When am I most likely to experience DOMS?
DOMS is most commonly experienced when a novel stimuli is introduced. Put more simply when you do something new. That is why those starting up a new training regime will likely experience DOMS following their first few sessions.
Experienced athletes and trainers will also experience DOMS. This will more likely happen at the start of a new training block where exercises are changed up. It will also be more likely to be experienced when training volume, frequency or intensity are increased. That is, if you start training more often, start adding more volume to each session or start going harder. Each of these alone or in unison will increase the likelihood of experiencing DOMS.
Not giving your body sufficient time to recover between sessions will also increase the likelihood of experiencing DOMS. Poor sleep quality, nutrition and hydration will exacerbate the experience of DOMS.
Exercise selection can also have an impact on DOMS. Emphasising the eccentric (lowering or lengthening part of an exercise) can lead to increase experience of DOMS.
Some muscles also appear to be more prone to DOMS, anyone who has experienced the discomfort of sitting on the toilet two days after a heavy squat session will recognise that legs in particular fall into this category.
No Pain no gain, right?
Well perhaps not. Some muscle soreness to varying degrees is probably to be expected at the start of a new exercise or training regime or change in training cycle and some soreness can be one sign of an effective workout. However, I often hear people saying that they felt sore for days afterwards and almost wear this as a badge of honour to show that their workout has been effective, using soreness as a prominent sign of an effective workout. In the world of social media extremes people will often sell products on the notion that it will push you hard and you will hear people spout the whole “no pain no gain” mantra. Whilst I absolutely agree there is merit in pushing hard and testing limits with your training, constantly aiming for soreness to show for this effort could be detrimental to your overall results. I was listening to a podcast a while ago where the guest speaker, a prominent and respected authority in the health fitness arena, said “any idiot can make any idiot sore.” A valid point as anyone could go and select a random workout, push it as hard as possible and repeat this process over and over with novel stimuli and high intensity and remain perpetually sore and exhausted. In this scenario are they making progress or improving their health and well being? Probably not.
Research shows that DOMS is not directly associated with muscle growth and there is also evidence to show that less DOMS could be associated with more growth.
Excessive DOMS can impede your ability to train, leading to missed workouts at worst and ineffective workouts at best. If you are perpetually sore and in discomfort this can lead to a reduction in your motivation to train, as who wants to feel continually sore and beat up? As we know consistency is king when it comes to progress and excessive and habitual soreness does not align well with maintaining consistency.
From a sporting and performance perspective excessive DOMS can impede your performance in your given field. Therefore, we need to adjust our schedule to ensure that the training and recovery are in line to allow us to perform at our best on game day, this is obviously of particular importance in season.
Why is DOMS not a good sign of workout effectiveness?
Bearing in mind all of the above there are a number of other factors we can also point towards to show why using DOMS alone to assess the effectiveness of a workout may not be the best strategy.
- As we said above, some muscles are more prone to experiencing DOMS, yet muscles which experience little to no effect of DOMS are still able to grow and develop. So, if a muscle that was trained yesterday isn’t sore in the days thereafter it does not mean that the muscle has not been effectively worked.
- If there is a genetic element to the experience of DOMS, say I experience it worse than you, but with a similar training plan applied consistency we are both able to develop and grow muscle then this would suggest that the role of DOMS is not important. I just may consider myself unlucky in that I have to experience the DOMS more intensely than you do!
- As you would expect with DOMS being linked to the introduction of a new training stimulus it tends to be worse at the start of a new training cycle. However, most muscular adaptations (improvements) show at the end of the training cycle or after a few weeks when the muscles have adapted to the stimulus, not when your muscles are at their most sore.
- Some activities can produce quite severe DOMS but do not lead to muscular growth. Long endurance events such as marathons being a prime example of this. *other beneficial adaptations ie cardiovascular are obviously being gained from this type of training but we are solely considering muscular changes here.
- Training age and experience plays a large role. Well-trained regular gym goers tend to experience a lesser degree of soreness than those who are de-trained or newer to working out. Yet both trained and de-trained individuals can still make good muscular developments irrespective of the experience of muscle soreness.
What can we use DOMS to assess?
Let’s not totally disregard DOMS and what it is telling us. So, what does DOMS show? Simply DOMS shows how your body has reacted to that new stimulus, whether that be a new routine, a change in exercise selection, intensity, volume etc. We can use DOMS as a measure to see how we are responding to that change. If the DOMS are excessive and continual its likely we’ve gone too hard or too soon on one of those factors. Therefore, we can use our body’s feedback to alter our approach going forward by manipulating the training sessions, reducing and adapting the variables within it. Excessive and continual DOMS is also a sign that our body is not able to recover between training sessions. We can use this information to make sure we have our recovery protocols in line and back off until we find a place where we are able to recover efficiently. Use DOMS as another data point to track and assess your workouts and your body’s reaction to it.
How can I reduce the impact of DOMS?
Ultimately increasing your training experience over time will be the main factor in reducing your experience of DOMS (sorry if you were looking for some kind of hack or magic pill). Contrary to what you may think, those with higher muscle masses tend to experience less DOMS than those lower muscle masses. It could be thought that the more muscle you have the more likely it is to be sore post workout. However, it would seem that the lengthy process in obtaining this muscle mass (your training age) will have built up that resilience. There are a few things that you can do post and pre workout that may assist in your experience of DOMS.
When starting out on a new regime or changing up your training cycle be conservative (within reason) with how quickly you increase the workout difficulty. We obviously want to be challenged and progressively overload the body to see improvements but see it as a long game rather than diving in too hard too soon.
Using dynamic stretching before starting the workout has been shown to have some benefits in reducing DOMS, although interestingly static stretching before or after has been shown to have little effect. A low intensity cool down afterwards may be of benefit.
In the days afterwards keeping moving can help ease the soreness. This would be light activity which could be walking, swimming or a light bike ride.
Although already mentioned a few times ensure you are getting adequate sleep and high-quality nutrition. Hydration is absolutely key both pre, during and post workout.
Massage and warm baths can help and are also just quite pleasant! Some people can find applying things such as deep heat creams to be of benefit, I’ll happily use it just for the incredible smell, although be careful where you apply it! As appears to be popular now, probably in large part thanks to Wim Hoff, the use of cold plunges has become prevalent (not just for recovery benefits). I have personally found these to be quite beneficial in reducing soreness although not a particularly enjoyable experience at the time. There is developing research to show that the cold exposure may come at some cost to the muscular adaptation from the workout. So, for those who are really looking to get marginal gains and eek out every ounce of progress from their workouts from a muscle building standpoint, they may wish to look into this further. That being said, for the average person the trade off may well be worth it.
Final Thoughts
If you are starting out on a new fitness regime, accepting that some soreness in the days after your workout is likely may help brace you for what is to come. Don’t let that put you off. Knowing that it is only temporary and that the experience is likely to diminish the more experienced you get with training should provide some solace. You can try to reduce the impact of DOMS by being sensible with your approach to your training, not going too hard too soon and allowing yourself ample recovery time between workouts. Also making sure that your nutrition and hydration are as dialled in as possible is going to be of benefit.
As for whether we should be chasing that soreness as a sign of an effective workout, I think it’s been made quite clear that it is not a sensible approach for those wishing to make sustainable long-term progress. There is always a time and place to push the boundaries of training and every now and then it’s good to embrace the soreness. However, if you find yourself constantly beat up and sore or under the guidance of someone who is constantly pushing that soreness badge of honour, it should be a red flag and a hint that maybe you need to find another avenue to success.
No Pain no gain, perhaps not so much!
Summary
DOMS – Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness.
DOMS is not a pain associated with acute injury nor the discomfort experienced during a workout but is a deep muscular soreness that normally arrives in the days following a workout or activity.
The experience of DOMS is very unique to the individual and is linked to genetics, training age/experience, intensity/volume/type of workout, exercise selection, rest/recovery period, nutrition and hydration quality
DOMS is strongly associated with the introduction of a novel stimulus, which is why it’s often experienced by people starting a new fitness regime or following a change of training cycle.
The “No Pain No gain” mantra is not a good way to drive all your workouts and chasing DOMS as a measure of a successful workout is sub optimal at best and detrimental to overall success at worst.
Excessive DOMS can lead to missed workouts, lost consistency and reduced sporting performance.
Differences in genetics, individual muscle soreness experienced and training age show that using DOMS as a guide to a successful session is misguided.
Experience of DOMS can be taken as feedback from your body as to how it is responding to the stimulus (workouts) placed on it. We can view this as a useful data which can be used to guide and adjust our future workouts and recovery protocols.
The only real way to reduce the experience of DOMS is time spent training.
When you’re new to training or changing up a training cycle, doing so slowly and incrementally will likely lead to less severe experience of DOMS.
In the days after training, keeping moving, ensuring adequate rest, appropriate nutrition/hydration and utilising warm baths, massage and cold plunges can be beneficial for some.