You’ve heard you can have too much of a good thing, right? And working out isn’t any different. When you overdo it at the gym or with your home exercise, you can have a workout hangover. Waking up with aching, sore muscles the next day can make you wonder if it was worthwhile or not. No matter how high your level of pain tolerance, Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS), is real, but you can work through it and get right back at it.
Sore muscles are inconvenient, but they are also an indication that all that exercising is doing what you want it to do. When your body has microscopic tears in the muscles, DOMS is what occurs when they are repairing while you’re working out. This is often from increasing strain and can impact the comfort zone of your muscles. To prevent this from happening again, you need to better prepare your body.
The symptoms of DOMS are reduced muscle strength and range of movement along with joint stiffness. These appear usually six to eight hours after working out and will peak in twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Normally within 72 hours, the symptoms fade.
Now simply because you’re really sore and suffering DMOS doesn’t mean that it is all going to muscle strength, even though there are some muscles that become sore as they are exercised and pushed to the max. The more impact you put on your muscles, the sorer they will get, especially if you put an excessive amount of impact on them. Muscles will resist their own lengthening, like when you’re lowering weights or on a downhill run. They will also resist push-ups and squats.
So even though DOMS brings pain, you have to realize that pain and soreness means your exercising is working. Often recommended are anti-inflammatory pills and cold water baths to ease the pain for the immediate time. For long term help, your best bet is to get right back in that exercise routine. Your muscles will do much better once you get them moving again.
And remember that you should have a balanced, good diet to complement your exercising efforts. Experts recommend having a snack or meal after you have worked out that is abundant in carbs and proteins. This will help your muscles repair faster and alleviate the possibility of DMOS symptoms. If you are under a doctor’s care, check with them on the level of exercise you should attempt and if the DMOS symptoms aren’t gone within 72 hours, contact your doctor.
