Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness

DOMS is post-exercise soreness!

“Being sore means that my workout is working… right?”

Well…

I studied DOMS extensively during my education, pursuing my Bachelor’s in Kinesiology, and I had one question that opened a can of worms and also spurred my research into this topic.

DOMS stems from the type of movement that you do in the gym, and typically DOMS means that you have received some muscle damage to your targeted muscles (a good thing; this is how muscle is built!). The “movements” I spoke of earlier are: concentric and eccentric movements. When doing a bicep curl, the “up” is the concentric and the “down” is the eccentric. Essentially, whenever the muscle’s primary function is being used, it is a concentric movement. This concept gets fuzzier when you are doing compound movements (exercises that require more than one muscle to be recruited) like squats, deadlifts, and bench press.

To make matters VERY simple, both concentric and eccentric movements cause muscle damage, just differently. To avoid Severe Delayed-Onset Muscle Soreness (SDOMS), we must always work within our limits and progress slowly. Especially because eccentric movements are the portions of exercise that have the highest likelihood of where you would experience an injury.

Maybe you have worked out and been sore for over a week! That is a sign of SDOMS, the severe version of muscle soreness brought on by excess stress and muscle tearing.

Bottom Line

Choose exercises that challenge you and push you, but keep an eye on your body afterwards; if you are sore for longer than you expected, that is a sign to reduce the intensity, frequency, or duration of that movement.