After a hard day at the gym, almost all people start to experience some bodily soreness within 12-48 hours and this soreness can sometimes last for a few days. This soreness can be quite discouraging to some especially if this is the feeling that they begin to associate with working out. So to re-encourage anyone who has been put off of weight lifting, or working out at all, I will be explaining why the soreness set in, why it a “good” feeling, and ways to reduce the discomfort.

The Pain

The discomfort and soreness felt after a workout is formally called Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS). The exact causes of DOMS are not fully known but there are a few different theories to the soreness. Previously a very common belief is that DOMS is caused by the buildup of lactic acid in the muscles. However, is has been proven that the buildup of lactic acid has nothing to do with DOMS. Blood and muscle lactate levels do rise significantly within 30-60 minutes post work out and this is what causes the fatigue feeling immediately after workouts but after 1 hour the lactic acid begins breaking down and is flushed out of the system. Since we are talking about soreness that is lasting days and not hours, lactic acid is not the culprit for your soreness.

The more recent theories behind DOMS are associated with the literal microscopic tearing down of the muscle fibers. When you work out and you are for example doing a bicep curl as you are pulling the weight upwards your bicep is being strained and tiny muscle fibers are being broken. When you are done working out your body immediately sets out to begin repairing these microscopic muscle tears. While your body is repairing while you are awake the body really starts going to work once you go to sleep for the night. Once the body goes into hibernation mode (sleep) the body will naturally begin working overtime on repairing the muscles and this rebuilding process makes the muscle bigger and stronger than before. This is why you are almost always more sore in the morning then you were when you went to bed the night before.

It Hurts, But Feels Oh So Good!

The type of pain that is felt with DOMS is different than the burn felt during the actual workout and it is different from the pain of injury. The burn felt during the workout is the muscles growing fatigued and this always a good sign because your muscles are being worked and those microscopic muscle fibers are starting to tear ultimately growing bigger, stronger muscles. The pain from injury is one that needs to be learned, and learned quickly because and injury could put you out of the gym for a week or if things go really wrong possibly in surgery.

Unless the pain is so debilitating that it prevents you from participating in sports or from going about your day in a normal matter that next day soreness is a good pain! This is a sign that you had a good work out and trained hard enough to begin the breakdown of muscle tissue. The good pain should make you happy because the pain means that those sore muscles are recovering and developing. Now that you know that when you wake up the next day after a hard workout and it takes all of your will to get out of bed smile and go flex in front of a mirror, because your muscles are loving it right now!

Prevention and Reduction

You now know that the soreness feeling is called DOMS, it is caused by microscopic tearing of muscle fibers, and you know that whatever you feel is a “good” feeling, but how do you get rid of the soreness? Honestly, there is no guaranteed surefire way to get rid of the soreness associated with DOMS but there are ways to minimize the severity and amount of time the soreness lasts.

First we will talk about the ways to prevent or shorten the duration DOMS before DOMS ever sets in. DOMS will always be greatest in a beginner who has never worked out before. As the body adapts to the workload you are putting is through the soreness felt will become less sever. This is good, but also bad because it means that your body is getting use to the work out. This is the reason why even the body builders change their work out schedule every few weeks to keep their muscles developing.

A few ways to minimize the pain are quite simple:

• Warm up your muscles before you go straight to your work out. This will loosen up and warm up your muscles so they are more flexible and prepared to take on the daunting task you are imposing upon them.
• Cool down your muscles after exercise with very simple, gentle stretching. This prevents the buildup of lactic acid to prevent the initial soreness and since the lactic acid is removed faster the body can start repairing the muscles faster.
• Finally, make sure that your body has the means to repair your muscles. This means drink your protein after your workout, and make sure that you are consuming enough protein throughout the rest of the day, and a simple multi-vitamin can also help by giving your body the extra boost of nutrients.

Just like with prevention, there is no one simple way to treat DOMS. In fact, there has been an ongoing debate about treatment of DOMS and you can read other people’s opinions about treatment for DOMS is just about every fitness magazine out there. No one method has been scientifically proven effective for DOMS treatment, but some people I have talked to and I have found the following advice helpful. It is best for an individual to try a few things to see what works for them and the best advice I can offer is to do all possible to prevent DOMS it in the first place.

Here are some tips for dealing with soreness DOMS:

• Try taking a shower that is warm enough to produce steam, but not as hot as you can stand. This will relax the muscles and reduce some of the discomfort.
• Avoid taking ice baths and cold showers. This will make the muscles contract and tense which is the exact opposite of what you want. Many professional endurance athletes, like Lance Armstrong, do take these ice baths but that is because they are doing a drastically different form of work out then you are, they are trying to fully prevent their muscles from entering DOMS because they have to wake up the next morning and go right back out and do extreme physical activities.
• Gently massage the sore muscles. Even the uses of topical analgesic heat rubs (IcyHot®, Bengay, ect.) help me and recently they have new products that are heat patches, sleeves, knee braces and moldable foam pads that have the same effect.
• If you are looking for a cheap, reusable similar method sew a small cloth bag and fill it with rice then microwave. Follow link for more information http://www.allfreecrafts.com/sewing/ricehotpack.shtml
• Try taking an anti-inflammatory medicine like aspirin or ibuprofen to temporarily reduce the soreness although they won’t actually speed up healing in any way.
• Warning: this method is helpful sometimes but you should not rely on this method because the effectiveness of any of these medications is diminishing over time, meaning they will become ineffective if abused!
• Use common sense when working out. If you begin doing an exercise and that specific muscle group is suffering from DOMS be gentle with it and if pain occurs during exercise STOP.
• Patience is a virtue. Soreness will go away in 2 to 4 days with no special treatment so you might just have to tough it out and wait.
• Learn something from the experience! With time you will find a method that works well for you so stick with it.

DOMS does not discriminate, it affects all of us. No matter how much you despise DOMS you need it if you want to keep your muscles developing so one day you can get that ripped figure you’ve always been dreaming of. So instead of dreading DOMS embrace what you know it’s doing for you and find ways to minimize the soreness.