DOMS Decoded: What Your Muscle Soreness Is Actually Telling You

The Good Hurt vs The Bad Hurt

That deep, satisfying ache 24-48 hours after a solid training session? That's DOMS - delayed onset muscle soreness - and it's your body's way of telling you something important happened. But what exactly is it telling you, and should you be doing anything about it?

First, let's clear up a persistent myth: DOMS is not caused by lactic acid buildup. Lactate clears from your muscles within an hour of training. The soreness you feel the next day (or two days later) is structural damage and inflammation, not metabolic waste.

What's Actually Happening

When you perform eccentric contractions - the lowering phase of movements, like descending into a squat - you create microscopic tears in muscle fibres. This triggers an inflammatory response: your immune system floods the area with white blood cells, and the resulting swelling puts pressure on nerve endings. That's the soreness you feel.

Cheung et al. (2003) clarified that DOMS peaks 24-72 hours post-exercise and represents normal, adaptive damage. The key word is adaptive. This micro-trauma, when followed by proper recovery, leads to stronger, more resilient muscle tissue. DOMS isn't the enemy - it's a signal that your training stimulus was sufficient to drive adaptation.

Should You "Work Through It"?

Here's where it gets nuanced. DOMS reduces force production capacity by 5-10% and impairs proprioception (your sense of body position), which increases injury risk during complex movements. Training through severe DOMS isn't tough - it's counterproductive.

But complete rest isn't optimal either. Light movement and therapeutic interventions that don't add training stress can accelerate recovery.

The Percussive Therapy Solution

Massage guns work through two mechanisms: mechanical disruption of adhesions in fascial tissue and neurological pain modulation via the "gate control theory." High-frequency vibration activates mechanoreceptors that inhibit pain signals to the brain - essentially closing the pain gate.

Wiewelhove et al. (2019) found that percussive therapy reduced DOMS perception by 30% and improved range of motion recovery when applied 24 hours post-exercise. The protocol: 2 minutes per muscle group at moderate intensity (not maximum - more isn't better).

Practical Application

Use DOMS as information, not a badge of honour. Moderate soreness indicates effective training. Severe, debilitating soreness suggests you've exceeded your recovery capacity. When DOMS hits, spend 10-15 minutes with a massage gun on affected areas, combine it with light movement (walking, cycling at conversational pace), and adjust your next session's intensity accordingly.

Recovery tools don't prevent adaptation - they accelerate it by managing inflammation and maintaining tissue quality. Train smart, recover smarter.

References

• Cheung, K., Hume, P. A., & Maxwell, L. (2003). Delayed onset muscle soreness: treatment strategies and performance factors. Sports Medicine, 33(2), 145-164.

• Wiewelhove, T., Döweling, A., Schneider, C., Hottenrott, L., Meyer, T., Kellmann, M., ... & Ferrauti, A. (2019). A meta-analysis of the effects of foam rolling on performance and recovery. Frontiers in Physiology, 10, 376.