If you have ever exercised, you have probably experienced muscle soreness after you have completed working out. Typically, the muscle soreness occurs the day after or two days after your workout.

So, what is muscle soreness and why do we experience it?

Muscle Soreness or Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness, (DOMS), usually peaks between 24 and 48 hours after exercise and subsides within 96 hours. The soreness occurs from damage to our muscles during exercise. This damage is actually good  because as a muscle repairs itself following exercise, it becomes stronger.

Several factors can affect how much muscle soreness we experience. Fatigue, muscle stiffness, how fast we contract a muscle and the angle of the muscle contraction can affect how much soreness we feel. New or unfamiliar exercises and eccentric exercises as well as your training level can affect muscle soreness.

Fibers within our muscles become damaged during resistance exercise. This damage produces inflammation and then free radicals in the muscle. We feel mild discomfort or pain when we move stretch or put pressure on the muscle. Typical symptoms include pain, loss of strength, swelling, muscle stiffness, and tenderness.

It’s important to know that the loss of strength usually peaks within the first 48 hours after exercise and full recovery can take more than 5 days. Pain and tenderness can take up to 7 days while stiffness and swelling peak within 3-4 days. So, all those YouTube videos that tell you to Squat for 30 days in a row will only make you weaker because your muscles need time to recover and regain strength.

There are several ways to speed up recovery and diminish muscle soreness. The most common treatments that people use to treat DOMS are passive stretching and massage. Despite their widespread use, there is little scientific evidence to support these treatments. The use of anti-inflammatory medicines may relieve some, but not all symptoms of muscle soreness.

A good pre-exercise warm-up like the one we use at Strength for Life has been shown to be effective. Cryotherapy and using compression garments have also been shown to be effective. Nutritional supplements have also been used to alleviate the effects of DOMS, but more research is needed in this area. Exercising consistently will also reduce the amount of soreness you experience following exercise sessions as the body will adapt to the work.

If you experience muscle soreness after exercising, make sure you warm-up properly before your next exercise session, do some light workouts until the soreness lessens and continue to exercise on a consistent basis.