“No pain, no gain” is a commonly used expression when it comes to getting in shape. It may also be why many of us think you need to feel sore after a workout to know you’ve done enough.
There are many reasons why muscles can ache after a workout. But contrary to popular belief, you don’t necessarily have to feel sore in the hours or days after exercise to know you’ve had a good workout.
Delayed onset muscle soreness is the scientific term to describe the sore and tender feeling our muscles have after a workout. It usually happens after you’ve done a particularly strenuous exercise, or if you’re doing exercise you’re not used to. It can occur after any type of exercise, although it is more common after eccentric exercise. These are movements in which the muscles resist a load while stretching (such as when running downhill or down stairs). The smaller muscles of the upper extremities (such as the biceps and shoulders) may be more susceptible to DOMS as they may not be used to to eccentric exercise.
While DOMS can occur even hours after a workout, it usually peaks about two days later, depending on the intensity and volume of exercise. But while DOMS is common, why it happens remains poorly understood, though researchers have a few theories about what’s going on.
the current scientific theory is that DOMS is tied to a combination of:
- mechanical damage (to the protein structure of the muscle fiber),
- Damage to the membrane that covers the muscle fiber,
- Damage to the connective tissue that surrounds the muscle fibers,
- The body’s inflammatory response, which causes further breakdown of muscle proteins and stimulates certain nerves, causing pain.
Some degree of exercise-induced muscle damage is probably necessary to help build bigger and stronger muscles. In fact, while muscle damage from exercise can reduce muscle function after a workout (sometimes even for up to two weeks), you’re less likely to experience DOMS to the same degree the next time you exercise. This may also explain why people who exercise regularly don’t experience DOMS as often.
Regular weight training, focused on eccentric exercises (such as squats, deadlifts, and bench presses) has also been shown to reduce the damaging effect of exercise in the muscles after ten training sessions. There is probably a number of reasons for thisbut largely it has to do with the muscle getting better at protecting against damage.
How often and how severely does a person experience DOMS varies from person to person. However, older people may be more susceptible to both exercise-induced muscle damage and DOMS, possibly because their muscles weaken. less able to recover after strenuous exercise. Research has also shown that people with certain genetic makeup they are better able to recover from eccentric exercise than other people who did the exact same workout.
If you’re starting a new exercise program and your first workout is particularly intense or long duration, it’s pretty hard to avoid DOMS. Adding more eccentric exercises into your training program can also lead to DOMS. But again, being sore doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve had a more effective session, it just means you’re doing something your muscles aren’t used to.
So if you exercise regularly and find that you don’t feel as sore later in the day or even in the days after your workout, you can rest assured that your workout is still working – your muscles are better at dealing with the pain. damage and recover from it.
If you want to get fitter and stronger, instead of feeling like you need to exercise until it hurts, focus on a principle called “progressive overload.” This is where you gradually increase the amount of exercise you do each time, such as performing additional reps on an exercise or adding additional weight. it is not only progressive overload has been shown to be an effective way to build muscle and strength, it can also decrease how often you experience DOMS. Studies show even a few weeks Regularly using progressive overload during workouts is enough to see this effect.
So instead of measuring how effective your training has been based on how sore you are, try gradually increasing the number of reps you do each week or the amount of weight you lift. These incremental gains in fitness and strength will show you how effective your previous workouts have been.
This article was first published on The conversation.
david R Clark, Senior Lecturer, Strength and Conditioning, Liverpool John Moores University
Carl Langan Evans Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Strength and Conditioning, Liverpool John Moores University
Rob Erskin, Associate Professor of Neuromuscular Physiology, Liverpool John Moores University
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