DOMS - Delayed onset muscle soreness.
That feeling of soreness you get from your muscles a day or couple of days after hard exercise or physical exertion that you are not usually accustomed too. The muscles are not sore when they are resting but are sore when they are contracted, stretched or having pressure applied to them.
What is it?
There is not a huge amount of research into DOMS, it is thought that feeling you experience is a large amount of micro-trauma in the form of small tears to the muscle fibres (myofibrils) from the overuse during exercise.
The good news is it doesn't last long and usually subsides a few days after it is first felt, and the recovery process usually means the muscle fibres are stronger and firmer than they were before. So hopefully the next time you carry out the exercise you won't feel quite so much DOMS as you did the first time.
Should you still train?
In order for the muscle fibres to become strong they need time to recover and repair, so if you want to train why not focus on another area of the body until the soreness has subsided (it does only last a few days at most). Active recovery is great to get your circulation going delivering fresh blood and oxygen to the muscle fibres, a walk , gentle jog, swim etc might help to ease the soreness, or perhaps some bodyweight exercises to get you moving.
It's important to listen to your body, it's probably sending you pain signals for a reason, plan your training wisely and don't forget how important recovery is. (I spoke about recovery in a previous blog post).
Take charge of your recovery and get yourself booked in for a maintenance massage by contacting me here.
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