We’ve been getting a lot of new people in the gym lately, and we’ve been having the discussion about sore muscles quite regularly. In light of that, I decided to re-post a post I wrote several years ago about Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness…
Originally Posted: Jan. 2012
DOMS can be tough to deal with. It usually is worse 48 hours after the offending event. Many people think Lactic acid is what causes the soreness, but in actuality that’s not necessarily true.
During training the muscle cells called Sarcomeres get what is called micro tears in them. These micro tears need to be repaired. Enter inflammation. This inflammation is actually a good thing and let’s your body know healing needs to occur. The inflammation is what makes you sore. The more micro tears you get from the breakdown in the muscle, the more inflammation, the more sore you become.
Got it? Great!
Of course, this is extremely oversimplified but we don’t need to go into massive physiological details. Here’s the good news, the point of exercise is to create breakdown. As the body addresses the inflammation and heals the Sarcomeres it actually repairs them stronger then they were before. That is how muscle is built, and the basis behind getting stronger.
Now we can’t talk about DOMS without addressing how to help it.
Here are a few tips to bring yourself out of the hurt locker:
1) Ice- Ice is one of the best things you can do for inflammation. Ice can be applied via ice bags, or for the most effective cold modality, ice baths/ submersion can be used. Google ice bath protocols to make sure you don’t over do it. Whatever you do, don’t heat it.
That’ll make it worse!
2) Movement- As counter intuitive as it sounds, the best thing to do for sore legs is to go for a run, or do some squats. The blood flow and fluid moving will actually help work out the soreness.
3) Stretching- This can help the muscles feel better after you move around
4) Foam rolling- Although painful, foam rolling can help loosen up trigger points in the muscles and when you finish you will be moving better.
5) Hydration- Making sure you have enough fluid in you will help give the muscles what they need to flush out the bad cells and repair the new cells.
6) Massage- This can be painful but can usually help you feel better when it’s over.
Good luck with your soreness. See you in the gym to work on some movement!
July 7th, 2015 WOD
Strength:
Snatch Balance
Met Con:
400m sprint
rest 2 min
5 rounds
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