I can’t remember when I first heard the term, nor when I first experienced the sensation that is DOMS. All I know is that now it’s an all-too-familiar feeling and a frequent one-syllable answer to the question “what’s the hell’s wrong with you?”
I’ve been going to the gym on and off for many years. I love food, and as such I’ve always been vaguely aware that I need to do some kind of exercise to prevent my transformation into an enormous creature of greed and lethargy. It’s a no-brainer that exercise is good for you. Sometimes I wonder how this message got lost by our ever-fatter population of people with an increasing number of weight-related health issues. But that’s a rant for another time. A rant that, in all honesty, is more to do with diet than exercise anyway. “I jogged for 10 minutes so I can eat this XL stuffed crust meat feast pizza guilt-free”. Sigh. But anyway, I digress.
I’m quite a fan of running outdoors. The scenery, planning routes, the sense of accomplishment. These are all things that I can handle, and even find enjoyable at times. Getting on the treadmill / rower / other cardiovascular equipment at the gym though, and watching the seconds count down for what seems like hours, willing the machine to break so I have a legitimate excuse to run away (literally)? No, this is an activity of which I am not a fan. So what do I do at the gym up to 5 days a week? Do I stand around chatting about soap operas? No. Do I admire myself in the abundance of mirrors, perfecting my selfie face? No. I do weights. I like doing weights. Weights are my thing.
This newly developed love for lifting started out following a 6 week Jim Stoppani plan from Bodybuilding.com called Shortcut to Shred. There’s an awful lot of information there regarding supplements and nutrition, but in reality I’ve pretty much just copied out the workouts to take to the gym with me, and more or less been following them chronologically, albeit not 6 days a week as suggested. After a couple of rounds of Shortcut to Shred, I tried Erin Stern’s Elite Body for a month, and now I’m giving another Jim Stoppani program a go, called Super Shredded 8. (I got the ebook as a pdf by signing up to a newsletter to save some dollar)
I love the structure of following a weightlifting plan. I love the variety of exercises on offer. I love sitting down at the lat pulldown machine and realising I’ve loaded the same weight as the big guy next to me. I actually love my post-workout protein shake. What I really, really don’t love though, is the burning, heavy, often immobilising sensation that inevitably follows a tough session.
I recently had a bit of a break from the gym and only got a couple of workouts in over a couple of weeks. It turns out, there was actually about a 2 week gap between my last leg workout and the one that spurred me to write this post. WOW the pain was bad. I started with the intention of getting back into regular strength training. Looking back at my workout log, I figured I would start back from where I left off, on a leg day of my current workout plan. I didn’t do any extra reps, or add any extra weight. The workout itself didn’t feel tougher than usual, I felt good about getting back into the swing of things. I did my warm down stretches and headed for the stairs to go back to the office and power through that Monday feeling for the afternoon. That’s where the warning signs started. I very nearly didn’t manage to stay upright after the first step. My supporting leg turned to jelly and I had to do some serious barrier grabbing to style it out and make it down the rest of the stairs. I showered, had my protein, ate my lunch, drank loads of water and went about my day. That evening was fine, I had a quiet night in, went to bed, all OK.
Tuesday morning, however, was a different story. Moving my legs to get out of bed = tricky. Actually going from prone to standing took an inordinate amount more effort than your average morning. I won’t even go into detail about how painful the stairs were. Suffice to say, I’m thankful for whomever invented the humble bannister. This horrible discomfort continued throughout the day, and into the next day, and was still very much present when I went to training on Wednesday evening. Now whilst I managed to pretty much fight through the pain in order to skate and take part in drills, it became apparent in scrimmage that the dreaded DOMS was to significantly impede my jamming ability. The first time I got knocked down (not long after I started) I simply could.not.get.up. There was just nothing there. I was stationary, on the track, on one knee, literally unable to get up and carry on. Luckily my pivot came to rescue me and I was able to very, very slowly lever myself back up to an upright position and wobble my way through the rest of the session. I stretched (ouch), went home, had a snack and went to bed. By Thursday morning I finally reached a point of bearable discomfort, at which point I was scheduled to work legs again in my training plan.
This experience led me to question the affect of DOMS on exercise, performance and recovery. And also, in part, question whether it really is justified in creating a sense of satisfaction. This brief report suggests that DOMS isn’t necessarily beneficial for muscle gain, so why do I feel a sense of vaguely masochistic pride when I’m struggling to put on my shoes / walk down a flight of stairs / reach for the coffee on the top shelf of the cupboard? For me, I think it’s the fact that I’ve tried. It’s that knowledge that this pain is a result of effort, of pushing myself, of testing my body’s limits to try and make it stronger, faster, fitter. My worry though, is that it might be doing some damage, which is the last thing I want when I’m trying to constantly improve my fitness. Apart from the obvious effect of not being able to stand up unaided at training following an over-pushed leg session, I wondered if there is actually any harm in pushing through the discomfort to continue. There are differing schools of thought as to what, exactly, causes DOMS. Popular theories have tended to focus on lactic acid build up, microtrauma and mild tissue damage to the muscle fibres as a result of eccentric (lengthening and stretching) movements. A quick Google produces both reports that say it’s OK to train through some muscle soreness, and also those that say you shouldn’t work through pain. The trouble with the internet is that you can probably find articles to support the most bizarre of claims, and a quick look at the rest of the first source brings up some incredibly dubious and worrying suggestions (“95% of people aren’t aware that being fat is unhealthy”, and “try this crash diet to lose weight fast” to name but two).
The more articles I looked into about training with DOMS, the more it became apparent that there is very little definitive evidence to support a theory that training with DOMS is either beneficial or detrimental to muscle development. There seem to be plenty of self-appointed experts on the subject, but very few valid research studies or non-anecdotal results to be found. I’d actually be really interested to hear some opinions from any fitness professionals out there – please do get in touch if you are one or you know someone who would like to add their expertise.
So what conclusions did I reach in my own mind about DOMS and exercise through my brief but targeted internet perusal of the subject?
- DOMS happens. It’s an inevitable part of pushing your muscles and building strength and power. One article I read referred to it as “nature’s little tax on exercise”, which I think fits the bill rather well.
- There are countless opinions, articles, tips, reports, do’s and don’ts on the web regarding how to prevent DOMS, how to recover from DOMS, and everything in between. Some are nonsense, some are useful, most need to be applied with a heavy dollop of common sense. However, it’s safe to say that warming up properly, stretching afterwards, drinking lots of water and getting in the right nutrients isn’t going to do any harm.
- Exercising with DOMS is a personal thing. As with so many health related subjects, the onus really is on the individual to know their limits, to be aware of that line between pushing yourself and injury.
Are you going to ache after a strength workout? Probably. Should it be so bad that you literally cannot dress yourself the following day? Probably not. Is it best to push yourself within your own limits and be aware of when to rest and when to power through? Almost definitely.
Happy lifting!
