How to Relieve Sore Muscles
Dear Mark,
Been eating primal for a few months now, loving it, but I just started doing some workouts and the soreness that comes a day or two later is just killing me. Does it get better? Maybe I’m doing them wrong?
Thanks,
Jill
Thanks, Jill, for the question. It’s a subject that, had you not mentioned it, might never have popped up. What you’re describing is delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), and it’s completely normal – especially for people just getting started exercising. The symptoms include muscle tenderness, soreness, weakness, and even swelling. As you’ve noticed, DOMS usually manifests a day or two after a particularly strenuous workout. It afflicts millions of people, from weekend warriors to hard-core athletes. Some dread it; others relish the feeling for days as proof that they’re making progress. But despite its ubiquity, science still hasn’t been able to nail down the precise cause of DOMS.
That hasn’t stopped several popular theories from circulating. You’ve probably heard about a few of them in the weight room.
One is that lactic acid is to blame. Lactic acid is what causes the “burn” during a workout, so it might sound natural and perfectly believable that lingering lactic acid is what causes DOMS, but it’s not. For one, the intense lactic “burn” feels nothing like DOMS, which is a duller type of pain. Two, lactic acid concentrations return to pre-workout levels within 60 minutes of working out, while DOMS occurs days later. Lactic acid has nothing to do with DOMS.
Another popular notion is that DOMS occurs because intense exercise breaks down your muscle fibers: you tear the muscle fibers apart with resistance training and they respond by coming back stronger than ever. The pain, then, comes with breaking down and rebuilding muscle fibers. Either that or it’s inflammation. Or it’s increased pressure on your nerves as a result of expanding muscle. There are a ton of possibilities thrown out there, and they all sound vaguely plausible, but the science is still murky. Whatever the cause, we do know that it can’t be neatly explained by a single factor. This article approaches DOMS by examining various research studies in an attempt to figure out the mystery, but the basic conclusion seems to be “DOMS simply is” (as if Descartes were a sports medicine physician).
It has been firmly established that a certain type of exercise – eccentric contraction – is more likely to cause DOMS. Eccentric contractions include walking downstairs, running downhill, and negative movements when weight training (lowering weights in a controlled motion, as opposed to letting gravity take over). I suppose eliminating as many eccentric contractions from your workouts as possible might reduce DOMS, but you’d be losing a major aspect of total strength building. It’d also be completely unfeasible, unless you plan on starting all your squats from the lowered position or somehow constructing a bench press rack that allows you to start each rep from your chest. No, negative movements are just as (possibly more) important, and it’s better and healthier to simply accept DOMS. You don’t have to like it, but you have to understand that it’s a normal part of working out.
That said, it might be possible to mitigate the intensity of DOMS. No silver bullets, of course, but there are methods that some people swear by.
- Time – Sometimes, you just need to give it time. The severest cases of DOMS shouldn’t last longer than 3-4 days. Most will subside after 1-2.
- Stretching – Stretching is just a good general policy already, and although the research doesn’t support it as a valid treatment for DOMS, stretching might at least make you feel better.
- Massage – It might not improve the function of DOMS-impaired muscles, but it does seem to help with the actual soreness.
- Ice Baths – Though there’s no clinical support, some people report an ice-water soak after a workout helps reduce incidence of DOMS.
- Anti-Inflammatories – Try ibuprofen or a chemical equivalent. Better yet try these 10 natural ways to reduce inflammation. They might reduce the pain, but – like with massage – your strength will still be impaired.
- Exercise – Warming up before your workout is always a good idea. Afterward, beset by DOMS, light exercise can “train” your body to work through the pain. Don’t work through any particularly severe DOMS, but it’s safe to get back on the wagon on the tail end of the soreness. Eventually, you should stop getting it altogether.
Remember – DOMS is different from a pulled or torn muscle, or a strained joint. As animals with pretty complex nervous systems, we should be able to instinctively tell the difference. DOMS shouldn’t be sharp and biting, and it shouldn’t affect the joints.
Above all, I consider DOMS to be a crucial step in the adaptive process. Not everyone gets it, but if you do you can rest assured you’re doing something right. I know from personal experience that introducing a completely new exercise into my routine or making a substantial jump in weight or intensity can induce DOMS. So for a beginner, like you, DOMS is probably inevitable. You can try the above methods, but ultimately your best option is to embrace the pain. Some sickos (like myself, actually) actually learn to love it and use it as a yardstick for progress (although a lack of DOMS does not indicate a lack of progress).
Believe it or not, I think that suffices. Muscles get sore. It may or may not be a concrete sign that our muscles are repairing, but I don’t think it really matters. At the very least, DOMS is a sign that our muscles are becoming attenuated to our workouts (after time, DOMS does significantly lessen – I, for instance, rarely get it anymore). The more we do them, the less sore we get. It’s a war of attrition. It’s supposed to hurt, at least a bit.
Anyone out there have a good method for dealing with DOMS? Let me know!
Further Reading:
Insects: Not Just for Breakfast Anymore
Tips for Getting the Best Massage
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Posted By: Mark Sisson
I have found that I no longer have any soreness after back to back long runs of 20+ miles ever since I started using VESPA. It is an amino acid supplement with all natural ingredients of filtered water, orange juice, honey, royal jelly, bee propolis, and wasp extract. It also keeps you from bonking during a run since it uses the amino acid extract derived from the Asian Mandarin Wasp (which flies 70 to 100 kilometers daily and carries half it’s weight in food on it’s back), it allows you to use your steady burn fat as fuel rather than having to intake large amounts of calories. I have found it to work very nicely with the primal lifestyle as it no longer requires one to use carbs as fuel, you can stick with your fat stores as grok did. If anyone is interested I order mine from: http://www.vespapower.com, you can make a comment to Peter Defty if you order and tell him you heard about it from me and that you live a primal lifestyle, as he does too and would be very interested to hear about your results.
I use Quick Relief from the TriVita company. It has an anti-inflammatory extract from the NewZealand green-lipped mussel, as well as white willow bark, and works very well. It comes in capsule form, as well as a rub-in gel cream. They really work!!! Beats ibuprofen and/or Celebrex.
Gardening always finds muscles you NEVER use for anything else.
My #2 plan is to start slow, always do less than you think you can get away with the first day, then rack up the exertion from day to day, this seems to ameliorate the problem.
My #1 plan is not to let the exertion levels drop to the point you need to do this, but I don’t usually manage that.
If you’re not opposed to supplements, and your soreness is primarily caused by lactic acid buildup, then beta-alanine is _THE_ supplement you should take. Beta-alanine forces your body to synthesize carnosine (a dipeptide built out of histidine and beta-alanine), which is a powerful acid buffer.
I haven’t had sore muscles ever since I started using beta-alanine. It’s both cheaper and more efficient than taking carnosine supplements. Win-win.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_alanine
Hi all. I find the morning after exercise warm sesame oil self massage before a shower helps followed by some gentle stretching / yoga.
The massage instructions I follow from here:
http://mapi.com/ayurveda_health_care/newsletters/ayurvedic_abyanga.html
You can actually do this daily and its really great.
Coffee as a muscle relaxant? Pshhh, caffine dilates + shortens blood vessels, which is good for your pain–but not for strength building. Plus caffine may keep you up and you may not realize how tired you actually are, and a lot of sleep is integral for getting big.
I use DOMS as my way of measuring if I’m over training or not. If I don’t get much then my muscles don’t seem to grow much so I usually don’t do any weights for a week. This really helps me avoid plateaus.
This leads me to think that it is more to do with muscle growth then lactic acid or muscle repair.
Eat/drink “fast carbs” like cooked carrots,raw, organic vegetable juices, fruits and fruit juices etc. post workout w/ protien/fat meal or shake. seems to work best for me to alleviate DOMS.Im guessing that the insulin is feeding my cells and restoring glycogen stores.
According to this study, carbing up before exercise can actually increase muscle soreness and inflammation:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/373874t588614803/
I worry a lot when I’m not sore the day after. For some odd reason, I have associated muscle growth and soreness in my head — can’t have one without the other.
I am not a big exerciser and so I joined a fitness boot camp with another friend of mine. I’m supposed to go 5 days a week for an hour each morning. I had to skip the second day already because I couldn’t imagine it would be worthwhile for me to go when I can’t even lift up my leg to put my pants on. The pain is embarrassing actually. I’m 33 years old, 2 kids and 150 lbs. I just want to lose about 15 pounds. I think dove in a little too deep here. I’m embarrased that I’m so incapacitated after 1 strenuous workout.
So, you guys are saying I should have just gone anyway and pushed myself through the pain? I was afraid I would make things even worse.
I’ve found that stretching after doing the activity helps the recovery. Massages are amazing for helping the soreness go away.
Good clean low fat protein like chicken breasts or tuna.
Food high in potassium like oranges or bananas.
TONS and TONS of water. Done.
I’ve stretching can be really good for muscle soreness. Plus try having a really hot bath too and let yourself soak.
My foam roller takes care of any doms
I’m not sore today and it makes me sad… I guess I didn’t push myself enough yesterday. I love moderate DOMS!
I’ve never tried the ribose that Big John writes about, but you can basically eliminate DOMS completely. One bight of banana in your after workout feed is all it takes. Timing is everything though, don’t wait too long.
WATER WATER WATER!!!!
I drink 2 Litres of water when I work out and 2-3 litres of water after; plus another one or two during the day. This has completely removed muscle soreness. I eat a protein bar before and after my work out. I am working out for 2-3 hours 3-4 days a week, and I feel GREAT the next day.
I love DOMS!! Hurts so good.
Massage really feels good too, and if you are good at relaxing into the pain, it makes it go away pretty significantly. Even more affective than that is working out the same muscles again, even though they are sore. Both activities involve, possible, breaking up tissues in the muscle, which hurts like hell, but then feels better afterwards. I wonder if the muscles just get really tight in the same way trigger points are formed.