One of the runners I am coaching asked me today to explain why she gets sore 2 days after her workouts. Well here is the answer:
DOMS Disease -- Why Do I Hurt Days After Exercise
Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) is pain or discomfort often felt 24 to 72 hours after exercise. This discomfort generally lasts 2 to 3 days. It was once believed to be caused by excess lactic acid buildup or lactic acid getting stuck inside the muscle. Since lactic acid exits the muscles fairly rapidly even in untrained people, this theory has been proven to be untrue. Lactic Acid build up could not explain pain experienced days after exercise. And since some concentric-only exercises produce lactic acid, but rarely produce DOMS it is now believed that DOMS is caused by micro tears in the muscle fibers caused during eccentric contractions. DOMS in more prevalent when moving to a training level one is not accustomed to.
The type of muscle contraction seems to be the key factor causing DOMS. For example, exercises that involve many eccentric contractions, such as downhill running or negative resistance reps, will result in the most severe DOMS. Eccentric contraction (lengthening the muscle) cause much more muscle damage than concentric contractions (shortening the muscle).
The discomfort you feel with DOMS is not caused by muscle damage itself but by the hypertrophy process. Instead the pain is caused by the muscles response to training and as the healing process begins the muscle cells start to swell and put pressure on nerves and vascular tissue, causing DOMS.
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One of the runners I am coaching asked me today to explain why she gets sore 2 days after her workouts. Well here is the answer:
DOMS Disease -- Why Do I Hurt Days After Exercise
Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) is pain or discomfort often felt 24 to 72 hours after exercise. This discomfort generally lasts 2 to 3 days. It was once believed to be caused by excess lactic acid buildup or lactic acid getting stuck inside the muscle. Since lactic acid exits the muscles fairly rapidly even in untrained people, this theory has been proven to be untrue. Lactic Acid build up could not explain pain experienced days after exercise. And since some concentric-only exercises produce lactic acid, but rarely produce DOMS it is now believed that DOMS is caused by micro tears in the muscle fibers caused during eccentric contractions. DOMS in more prevalent when moving to a training level one is not accustomed to.
The type of muscle contraction seems to be the key factor causing DOMS. For example, exercises that involve many eccentric contractions, such as downhill running or negative resistance reps, will result in the most severe DOMS. Eccentric contraction (lengthening the muscle) cause much more muscle damage than concentric contractions (shortening the muscle).
The discomfort you feel with DOMS is not caused by muscle damage itself but by the hypertrophy process. Instead the pain is caused by the muscles response to training and as the healing process begins the muscle cells start to swell and put pressure on nerves and vascular tissue, causing DOMS.
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