tips and tricks on how to minimise DOMS

[crazyfacials]

hey all

I decided to pretend I am a big boy and did a leg session with 2 big fellas at my gym and went with whatever weights/reps they did ...I got through it with a mean poker face (I was hurting as f*ck but said it was an ok workout lol)

anyway after that I had horrible DOMS for a week...like the worst leg doms ever, so it got me thinking about this post....other than having plenty of rest/eating a decent amount of protein what else do you do? stretching would of been a good thing to do afterwards I guess however I am one of those dumb people who skip it (and shouldn't)

any input or funny pics would be appreciated

[bang_bang]

my advice would be to train your legs hard every week so they become accustomed to it..

[crazyfacials]

lol I do that eh, it's my favorite bodypart to workout

[scrambledeggs]

light resistance work to get some blood flowing into the muscles can help the doms.

[falla]

Talking to some guy in sauna about it.

He said, fluctuate the temperature of your body which releases the lactic acid in your muscles.

He suggested, saunaing for 5 minutes, then having a cold shower for a few minutes.Then repeat a few times.

Unsure if there is any truth in it or not.

[drizzt]

^Sounds like a hot/cold variation. I usually do that with the shower for injuries; have the water hot, focusing it more on the sore bodyparts... then whip it to the coldest setting and leave it for 15-20seconds. I usually do 20 on/20 off.

Otherwise, do the same movements that got you DOMS in the first place. Stumbled across this one during Smolov - horrible DOMS, but if you keep squatting (putting your body through the same movemnt, stretching exactly what got tight the first time around) they'd lessen gradually.

Honestly, I love DOMS, although it isn't necessarily related to a "good" workout, it makes me feel like I've done something right :grin:

[mike27]

10mins light spin bike then 5mins cool down

full leg stretching

compression pants? i put mine on after i shower etc and then leave them on overnight, including sleeping in them

[crazyfacials]

well I kind of agree with you Drizzt/Mike ... I don't see doms as an indicator of a good workout but I suppose if the muscle I was working out is in pain then I did target the right one, currently my only temp fix for doms is similar to what mike suggested and that's cardio....1 hour on the x trainer makes the legs feel good for about an hour or so then it kicks in again lol, I got some compression pants so I might try that for leg doms

[Android]

Over the years I've pretty much isolated the severity of my DOMS down to nutrition and it's timing, with and without gear.

I "must" eat a recovery meal before the workout, then if I miss or delay a protein meal in the following couple of days I get them bad.

During Uni days I found that Glutamine supplementation was a cheaper alternative especially during back to back lectures when I couldn't eat meat or a shake every 2hrs.

The spin bike sounds good, even a walk every so often to keep oxygen flowing which scavenges up the chemicials responsible for the pain and transports them away quicker would help.

[drizzt]

I don't see doms as an indicator of a good workout but I suppose if the muscle I was working out is in pain then I did target the right one

Have a read of a PMan article on it:

Why Your Muscles Get Sore: DOMS and Exercise

[crazyfacials]

great link Drizz...I am now aware!

and thanks for not suspending me for making a post

[drizzt]

No probs, thanks for not dragging this one off topic

[I Declare War]

I get muscle soreness after training but not typically DOMs anymore. In the past when I was still a novice to training I would get severe DOMs from time-to-time. From my experience it's a sign that you've trained well above your current limits, your body has been put in a compromised state, and it is working overtime, sending you signals telling you to back off.

These days, I only ever get DOMs when I try some crazy new routine that puts my body in a state of overtrain and also when my immune system is compromised - it's a sure sign that a cold or the flu is on the way and that I need to back off immediately.

It's worth mentioning that I hardly ever get DOMs when I'm eating enough. If I'm in a calorie surplus DOMs just doesn't happen (apart from when my immune system is struggling). There must be some truth in Jay Cutler's statement that there's no such thing as overtraining, just under-eating (and, equally as important, I'd add, that you get enough quality rest and recovery time).

I do not think DOMs is something that should be strived for as an indicator that your workouts are working. It's something that you should actively try to avoid. Muscle soreness, is okay though. DOMs is something completely different. They may be on the same continuum but muscle soreness is most definitely on the okay and recoverably progressive side of that contiuum. DOMs just means you've pushed yourself too far and as a result of your overtrained status you've compromised your recovery ability.

my advice would be to train your legs hard every week so they become accustomed to it..

There's some truth to that too. I think sometimes you just need to grit your teeth and train like a mad-man, eventually your body may adapt to the new routine. Be careful though... as this can lead to getting burnt out.

[drizzt]

I do not think DOMs is something that should be strived for as an indicator that your workouts are working.

Agree, absolutely :nod: Also fully agree that proper nutrition plays a part in preventing them.

It's something that you should actively try to avoid. Muscle soreness, is okay though. DOMs is something completely different. They may be on the same continuum but muscle soreness is most definitely on the okay and recoverably progressive side of that contiuum. DOMs just means you've pushed yourself too far and as a result of your overtrained status you've compromised your recovery ability.

Disagree here... a couple of the best squat sessions I've ever had, I could barely walk beforehand - the muscles themselves were fine (and had recovered from the previous day's squats), it was the tissue that was giving me pain.

Have a read of the link I posted above, here's a good part of it:

ThePman":31jj78rn]A study by Crameri et al (2007) indicates that muscle damage doesn’t really correlate to soreness. This experiment compared electrical muscle stimulation (ES) with voluntary contractions, and found that the ES protocol created far more muscle fiber ‘damage’.

However, the DOMS experienced by the two groups wasn’t any different. The pain of DOMS was actually attributed to the inflammation of the extracellular matrix – which is connective tissue that binds the muscle fibers together.

All of this would strongly indicate that connective tissues are the source of the actual pain and soreness, not the muscle fibers themselves. The damaging effects of exercise on actual muscle fibers don’t correlate with pain.

This is of interest because it means that inflammation and pain don’t indicate damaged muscle fibers per se. There’s tissue damage, and muscle fibers can be damaged along with that, but there’s no actual relation between muscle fiber damage and the pain you feel.

Taken together, there’s a very good chance that the processes behind DOMS and those responsible for muscle growth are only loosely related.

Muscle damage/recovery doesn't have much (if anything) to do with DOMS... Thoughts?

I'll repeat what I said above, and say the best way to beat DOMS, is keep doing what you're doing.

John Broz (whose guys squat to a max daily) likened it to starting work as a garbage man, here's a direct quote:

this is a tough one to swallow for most... THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS OVERTRAINING!!! if you can't do something you are not in good enough shape. Here is a story:

IF you got a job as a garbage man (or run a jackhammer, or some other physically demanding job) and had to pick up heavy cans all day long, I'm sure the first day would be very difficult - possibly almost impossible for some to complete so what do you do? take 3 days off and possibly lose your job? NO! you would take your sore, beaten self to work the next day. You would mope around and be fatigued - much less energetic than the previous day, but you would make yourself get through it. Get home, soak in the tub, take aspirin, etc. The next day would be worse..etc. etc. Eventually you will be running down the street tossing cans around and joking with your coworkers. How did this happen? You forced your body to adapt to the job at hand! IF you cant' squat everyday, lift heavy everyday then you are not OVERTRAINED, you are UNDERTRAINED!

Could a random person off the street come to the gym with you and do your exact workout? probably not - cause they are undertrained. Same goes with most when compared to elite athletes.

Just another view on it...

[severe]

light resistance work to get some blood flowing into the muscles can help the doms.

I found this to be true. Light resistance work for sure, or movement a least. Doing nothing only ensures you stay stiffer, longer.

[I Declare War]

It's something that you should actively try to avoid. Muscle soreness, is okay though. DOMs is something completely different. They may be on the same continuum but muscle soreness is most definitely on the okay and recoverably progressive side of that contiuum. DOMs just means you've pushed yourself too far and as a result of your overtrained status you've compromised your recovery ability.

Disagree here... a couple of the best squat sessions I've ever had, I could barely walk beforehand - the muscles themselves were fine (and had recovered from the previous day's squats), it was the tissue that was giving me pain.

I agree here to a point. Every now-and-then that kind of training is good, but it needs to be managed, if you're not careful you can use that reasoning to make training like that a habit of practice. Extrapolate that out a bit and you'll start working into the DOMs zone every workout. Many bodybuilders have done and do do this and many have paid the price. You start off taking panadol, then ibuprofen then add in codeine and then finally you end up on something like Nubain and crack cocaine (Tom Prince is a good example). Sure, you can work through the pain barrier, but in the end, if you don't listen to your body you will pay the price with your health and possibly even ultimately your life.

Have a read of the link I posted above, here's a good part of it:

ThePman":3dsrtlps]A study by Crameri et al (2007) indicates that muscle damage doesn’t really correlate to soreness. This experiment compared electrical muscle stimulation (ES) with voluntary contractions, and found that the ES protocol created far more muscle fiber ‘damage’.

However, the DOMS experienced by the two groups wasn’t any different. The pain of DOMS was actually attributed to the inflammation of the extracellular matrix – which is connective tissue that binds the muscle fibers together.

All of this would strongly indicate that connective tissues are the source of the actual pain and soreness, not the muscle fibers themselves. The damaging effects of exercise on actual muscle fibers don’t correlate with pain.

How is it good to be training with un-recovered connective tissues. Are they not also required for your body to function correctly. If you're constantly battering them down you're on the path to burn out and failure. Every now and then, give your body a shock and force it to adapt, just don't make overreaching that far a habit. Can't be good for you.

This is of interest because it means that inflammation and pain don’t indicate damaged muscle fibers per se. There’s tissue damage, and muscle fibers can be damaged along with that, but there’s no actual relation between muscle fiber damage and the pain you feel.

Taken together, there’s a very good chance that the processes behind DOMS and those responsible for muscle growth are only loosely related.

Muscle damage/recovery doesn't have much (if anything) to do with DOMS... Thoughts?

If there's pain, there's something not repaired fully. Agree?

I'll repeat what I said above, and say the best way to beat DOMS, is keep doing what you're doing.

Completely agree, keep doing what you're doing. You'll adapt to that workload. Just don't keep aiming to get DOMs and do more and more work/volume every workout - you just can't. You need to adapt first, let the gains sink in, and then when you're ready, blast yourself in the gym again... then repeat the process. The key is becoming good at listening to your body, and learning to know when to lay off and when to go full steam ahead.

John Broz (whose guys squat to a max daily) likened it to starting work as a garbage man, here's a direct quote:

this is a tough one to swallow for most... THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS OVERTRAINING!!! if you can't do something you are not in good enough shape. Here is a story:

IF you got a job as a garbage man (or run a jackhammer, or some other physically demanding job) and had to pick up heavy cans all day long, I'm sure the first day would be very difficult - possibly almost impossible for some to complete so what do you do? take 3 days off and possibly lose your job? NO! you would take your sore, beaten self to work the next day. You would mope around and be fatigued - much less energetic than the previous day, but you would make yourself get through it. Get home, soak in the tub, take aspirin, etc. The next day would be worse..etc. etc. Eventually you will be running down the street tossing cans around and joking with your coworkers. How did this happen? You forced your body to adapt to the job at hand! IF you cant' squat everyday, lift heavy everyday then you are not OVERTRAINED, you are UNDERTRAINED!

Could a random person off the street come to the gym with you and do your exact workout? probably not - cause they are undertrained. Same goes with most when compared to elite athletes.

Just another view on it...

That's a good story. A garbage man is adapting to what is a relatively high but stable level of work. He doesn't go out every day and attempt to lift more and heavier garbage cans like we as bodybuilders do with our weights in the gym. We need to analyse our progress and increase or decrease our output in the gym as a response. Once you get to the size you want to attain then sure the workload will remain rather static, but for someone on the up looking to pack on strength and mass successively over a period of many years training will need to be actively managed and periodised.

Everything in moderation. I must add that there's also a tolerance aspect to the DOMs thing also. The soreness that I experience in the days after training a body part, a newbie would likely call a bad case of DOMs. The key is managing your DOMs/muscle soreness with a good workout split.

[I Declare War]

It's something that you should actively try to avoid. Muscle soreness, is okay though. DOMs is something completely different. They may be on the same continuum but muscle soreness is most definitely on the okay and recoverably progressive side of that contiuum. DOMs just means you've pushed yourself too far and as a result of your overtrained status you've compromised your recovery ability.

Disagree here... a couple of the best squat sessions I've ever had, I could barely walk beforehand - the muscles themselves were fine (and had recovered from the previous day's squats), it was the tissue that was giving me pain.

I agree here to a point, every now-and-then is different to making it a habit of practice. Extrapolate that out a bit and you'll start working into the DOMs zone every workout. Many bodybuilders have done and do do this and many have paid the price. You start off taking panadol, then ibuprofen then add in codeine and then finally you end up on something like Nubain. Sure, you can work through the pain barrier, but in the end, if you don't listen to your body you will pay the price with your health and possibly even ultimately your life.

Have a read of the link I posted above, here's a good part of it:

ThePman":20ata24c]A study by Crameri et al (2007) indicates that muscle damage doesn’t really correlate to soreness. This experiment compared electrical muscle stimulation (ES) with voluntary contractions, and found that the ES protocol created far more muscle fiber ‘damage’.

However, the DOMS experienced by the two groups wasn’t any different. The pain of DOMS was actually attributed to the inflammation of the extracellular matrix – which is connective tissue that binds the muscle fibers together.

All of this would strongly indicate that connective tissues are the source of the actual pain and soreness, not the muscle fibers themselves. The damaging effects of exercise on actual muscle fibers don’t correlate with pain.

How is it good to be training with un-recovered connective tissues. Are they not also required for your body to function correctly. If you're constantly battering them down you're on the path to burn out and failure. Every now and then, give your body a shock and force it to adapt, just don't make overreaching that far a habit. Can't be good for you.

This is of interest because it means that inflammation and pain don’t indicate damaged muscle fibers per se. There’s tissue damage, and muscle fibers can be damaged along with that, but there’s no actual relation between muscle fiber damage and the pain you feel.

Taken together, there’s a very good chance that the processes behind DOMS and those responsible for muscle growth are only loosely related.

Muscle damage/recovery doesn't have much (if anything) to do with DOMS... Thoughts?

If there's pain, there's something not repaired fully. Agree?

I'll repeat what I said above, and say the best way to beat DOMS, is keep doing what you're doing.

Completely agree, keep doing what you're doing. You'll adapt to that workload. Just don't keep aiming to get DOMs and do more and more work/volume every workout - you just can't. You need to adapt and let the gains sink in and then, when you're ready, blast yourself in the gym and get more gains... and repeat the process. The key is becoming good at listening to your body and know when to lay off and when to go full steam ahead.

John Broz (whose guys squat to a max daily) likened it to starting work as a garbage man, here's a direct quote:

this is a tough one to swallow for most... THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS OVERTRAINING!!! if you can't do something you are not in good enough shape. Here is a story:

IF you got a job as a garbage man (or run a jackhammer, or some other physically demanding job) and had to pick up heavy cans all day long, I'm sure the first day would be very difficult - possibly almost impossible for some to complete so what do you do? take 3 days off and possibly lose your job? NO! you would take your sore, beaten self to work the next day. You would mope around and be fatigued - much less energetic than the previous day, but you would make yourself get through it. Get home, soak in the tub, take aspirin, etc. The next day would be worse..etc. etc. Eventually you will be running down the street tossing cans around and joking with your coworkers. How did this happen? You forced your body to adapt to the job at hand! IF you cant' squat everyday, lift heavy everyday then you are not OVERTRAINED, you are UNDERTRAINED!

Could a random person off the street come to the gym with you and do your exact workout? probably not - cause they are undertrained. Same goes with most when compared to elite athletes.

That's a good story. A garbage man is adapting to what is a relatively high but stable level of work. He doesn't go out every day and attemt to lift more and heavier garbage cans like we as bodybuilders do with our weights in the gym. We need to analyse our progress and increase or decrease our output in the gym as a response. Once you get to the size you want to attain then sure the workload will remain rather static, but for someone on the up looking to pack on strength and mass successively over a period of many years training will need to be actively managed and periodised.

Just another view on it...

Everything in moderation 8)

[drizzt]

Completely agree, keep doing what you're doing. You'll adapt to that workload. Just don't keep aiming to get DOMs and do more and more work/volume every workout - you just can't. You need to adapt first, let the gains sink in, and then when you're ready, blast yourself in the gym again... then repeat the process. The key is becoming good at listening to your body, and learning to know when to lay off and when to go full steam ahead.

^^I think we agree for the most part, but there is a grey area where we're differing a bit.

I had a big reply typed out in response to all of your points, but I'll try and summarise it because it was getting a bit long :pfft:

DOMS occur when you don't train something frequently - first time gym goers, first squat session in a while, first deadlift session in a while... whatever it is, if the exercise or work is new or infrequent to you, you'll hurt the next day (or more). Agree?

Yet, when you repeatedly do this stuff (squat multiple times per week for example), the pain doesn't hang around, it gets better. Not only does it get better... it doesn't come back. As long as you keep training like that.

What can you take from this?

Firstly, the soreness has nothing to do with how your muscles perform. May affect the session in that if something hurts you might not do it... but that is mental, rather than physical. If you push through the pain, your muscles are still effective. Right?

Doing the same exercise to lessen DOMS - which we seem to agree on(?) - stretches the tissue (cause of the pain) making it feel better. Sound alright? Working through DOMS is ok because not only are you forcing your body to adapt (get stronger), you are stretching the tissue out (lessening soreness).

Your body is in the recovery process, you're right, but training through it is stretching it out, making it better. I think this is the point we disagree on. I'm quite confident in this, because I have, and continue to, train through pretty bad DOMS with nothing but good results (and am not a drug addict because of it :pfft:). Again, it is only once in a while, because once I'm over that hump... it's smooth sailing from there.

Absolutely agree that DOMS shouldn't be sought after, but for different reasons than what you're saying. I'm saying it's because it isn't of any benefit... but it isn't (necessarily!) a bad thing either.

[I Declare War]

Completely agree, keep doing what you're doing. You'll adapt to that workload. Just don't keep aiming to get DOMs and do more and more work/volume every workout - you just can't. You need to adapt first, let the gains sink in, and then when you're ready, blast yourself in the gym again... then repeat the process. The key is becoming good at listening to your body, and learning to know when to lay off and when to go full steam ahead.

^^I think we agree for the most part, but there is a grey area where we're differing a bit.

I had a big reply typed out in response to all of your points, but I'll try and summarise it because it was getting a bit long :pfft:

DOMS occur when you don't train something frequently - first time gym goers, first squat session in a while, first deadlift session in a while... whatever it is, if the exercise or work is new or infrequent to you, you'll hurt the next day (or more). Agree?

Yet, when you repeatedly do this stuff (squat multiple times per week for example), the pain doesn't hang around, it gets better. Not only does it get better... it doesn't come back. As long as you keep training like that.

What can you take from this?

Firstly, the soreness has nothing to do with how your muscles perform. May affect the session in that if something hurts you might not do it... but that is mental, rather than physical. If you push through the pain, your muscles are still effective. Right?

Doing the same exercise to lessen DOMS - which we seem to agree on(?) - stretches the tissue (cause of the pain) making it feel better. Sound alright? Working through DOMS is ok because not only are you forcing your body to adapt (get stronger), you are stretching the tissue out (lessening soreness).

Your body is in the recovery process, you're right, but training through it is stretching it out, making it better. I think this is the point we disagree on. I'm quite confident in this, because I have, and continue to, train through pretty bad DOMS with nothing but good results (and am not a drug addict because of it :pfft:). Again, it is only once in a while, because once I'm over that hump... it's smooth sailing from there.

Absolutely agree that DOMS shouldn't be sought after, but for different reasons than what you're saying. I'm saying it's because it isn't of any benefit... but it isn't (necessarily!) a bad thing either.

I think we actually agree on everything... we're just articulating ourselves slightly differently.

[drizzt]

Haha, sweet, settled 8)

[HarryB]

Here I was hoping for a Drizzt v IDW epic battle... with DOMS lol

[I Declare War]

Here I was hoping for a Drizzt v IDW epic battle... with DOMS lol

Sorry to disappoint! lol

[vracula]

I love and hate doms equally!