Thread: DOMS

Hi guys,
I destroyed my legs with yesterday's workout, bringing me back to the usual problem of suffering from Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness, (commonly referred to as DOMS). Once again, this might prevent me from working out another part of my body today, especially cardio after. Anyone have any remedies or tricks besides pain medication and time to help ease this a bit?

Aspirin after the work out should help, possibly Advil or something with ibuprofen as well.

I was hoping for a more "natural" remedy, but I'll take your advice for now!
I did manage to get in a chest/tricep workout yesterday, but my cardio was limited to an hour walk. Thanks for the reply.

From my understanding, the stiffness you feel is actually the lactic acid build up in your muscles, which cause the stiffness, soreness and discomfort. I know that when I get that, the best thing I can do is actually go to the gym, do my usual dynamic warmup, and then do my weight program targeting another part of my body, then a nice walk for about 30 minutes, that will "disperse" the lactic acid in your muscles, followed by a hot bath/shower and you should be good.

Also, if you keep doing that, you will build up a resistance and the lactic acid will disperse quicker and quicker slowly increasing your recovery time.

Originally Posted by Phrank

From my understanding, the stiffness you feel is actually the lactic acid build up in your muscles, which cause the stiffness, soreness and discomfort. I know that when I get that, the best thing I can do is actually go to the gym, do my usual dynamic warmup, and then do my weight program targeting another part of my body, then a nice walk for about 30 minutes, that will "disperse" the lactic acid in your muscles, followed by a hot bath/shower and you should be good.

Also, if you keep doing that, you will build up a resistance and the lactic acid will disperse quicker and quicker slowly increasing your recovery time.

I agree with you there, I did notice while I was in my gym that the discomfort was temporarily gone, as when I was walking. Usually this is a beginners problem, but I don't feel like I've gotten a sufficient pump on my muscles if they don't hurt the next day, so I constantly push for more. In fact, they hurt the most on the second day after a hard workout. That's why this is a reoccurring problem for me.

Originally Posted by Firefighter2

I agree with you there, I did notice while I was in my gym that the discomfort was temporarily gone, as when I was walking. Usually this is a beginners problem, but I don't feel like I've gotten a sufficient pump on my muscles if they don't hurt the next day, so I constantly push for more. That's why this is a reoccurring problem for me.

Cool - I do a four day program, seems similar to yours, doing drop sets of 5 sets, 12 reps, 10, 8, 6, 4 with the weight going up as reps decline. I usually drink half a protein shake before the gym, and a full vegan protein shake after, you know the, "Recover/Rebuild" kind, which I change brand and mix every tub. Also, plenty of water, water, water, water...and if I get sore enough, I don't take aspirin, I will take one Ibuprofen, which is an anti-inflammatory, and seems to take any discomfort away pretty quickly, but that's only if I do a brutal workout.

I know I've had a good bicep/tricep day when I can barely shave....

Originally Posted by Firefighter2

I was hoping for a more "natural" remedy, but I'll take your advice for now!
I did manage to get in a chest/tricep workout yesterday, but my cardio was limited to an hour walk. Thanks for the reply.

Other than massage I do not see anything else natural that can help.
I do aspirin after the work out and get very little DOMS.

Originally Posted by mainaman

Other than massage I do not see anything else natural that can help.
I do aspirin after the work out and get very little DOMS.

Thanks, I'll try Aspirin. Aleve doesn't seem to work for me, although it should be comparable to Aspirin.

I've often recommended some sort of NSAID before a workout if a client knows they'll be pushing that hard. Usually though, I try to "build up" any client to that point before I show no mercy. For me as a Trainer, it's easy to take an "untrained" individual (not implying you're untrained) but if you really want to test a Trainer, put a highly conditioned athlete with that same Trainer and see what happens. If a trainer is good, he or she can challenge even a highly trained person. To take the "typical" Al Bundy type, who hasn't done much physical work since high school sports, and work that person until DOMS sets in isn't a fair fight...any decent Trainer would win that one every time. All things being equal, once it sets in, DOMS is usually worse two days later as you've likely experienced by now.

DOMS is a result of microtears not lactic acid.