What is DOMS?

If you have ever experienced stiffness in your muscles after unaccustomed or strenuous exercises, you will be familiar with DOMS.  DOMS stands for Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness, however new research is suggesting that it is not the actual muscle fibres which are causing the pain.  

DOMS is most commonly caused by an activity involving predominantly ‘eccentric’ muscle contraction.  If you haven’t heard of the term eccentric, it means that the muscle is active/contracting whilst getting longer. A good example of this would be when you are at the gym and you are slowly lowering a dumbbell whilst doing a bicep curl.  If your muscles did not contract eccentrically, the weight would fall to the ground with no control.  

  

The old theories of DOMS

Up until now the cause for DOMS was put down to one of two things.  The first is a build-up of ‘Lactic Acid’ in the muscles.  Whilst this could cause muscle pain, this theory has been debunked recently as it has been shown that lactic acid levels return to normal rather quickly after stopping activity.  But DOMS usually comes on after 24 – 72 hours post- exercise. 

The second theory is that DOMS is caused by microdamage to the muscle fibres.  This is a good theory and has been around for about 120 years.  However, muscle damage is associated with an increased in Plasma Creatine Kinase (PCK) in the urine.  Subjects put through eccentric exercises to stimulate DOMS did not show a greatly increased PCK level, so it cannot be that either. 

Fascia could be the key

The current theory is that DOMS is caused by structural damage to the connective tissue called ‘Fascia’.  Fascia is made up of collagen and surrounds the muscle fibres, linking them together and attaching muscles to tendons.  You can think of fascia like the segments of an Orange.  It is the fibrous-like ‘skin’ that holds all of the juice in place.  Without fascia, our muscles would not work. 

 

A study in 1997 asked people to eccentrically contract their leg muscles 50 times.  They noticed an increase in hydroxyproline in the urine both immediately and up to 2 days after the exercise.  Hydroxyproline is present when there is a breakdown of collagen (ie fascia). It has also been found that fascia has more nerve endings than muscle does. This makes fascia a more likely source of DOMS pain. 

What can be done to reduce DOMS?

Firstly, you can take a Collagen supplement.  These are easy to get online or from your local health food shop.  This has been shown to reduce DOMS substantially when taken in the week running up to and two day after eccentric activity. Secondly, massage and foam rolling has been shown to significantly reduce the effects of DOMS.  

For further advice from Andy or to book a sports massage with Tikira you can click here

The above image from unsplash.co.uk