Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) Causes & Preventive Measures

When you have an intense workout session and the next morning you wake up, you often find it quite difficult to move your muscles because of feeling extreme pain and this is because of Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. There may be various side effects of workout programs and most common of them is known as delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS).

DOMS Effects

This particular type of side effect can occur within 24 hours after you have an intense workout which includes pain, stiffness and tenderness. Now the important thing is to know the actual causes of DOMS because if you know the causes, you can learn how to handle it which will help you prevent it become a real problem.

What Causes DOMS?

When you perform some kind of intensive pace physical movement, your body reacts against it and this reaction is called DOMS. You are more likely to develop DOMS whenever you include a new exercise in your workout regimen or you do a physical activity which you haven’t performed for a long time.

In both the situation, your body experiences neuromuscular adaptations process because of the fact that brain is not familiar with the new exercises and it tries to learn about them which resulted into occurrence of DOMS in form of extreme soreness.

It just happens in the beginning and when you have performed a certain physical activity for many times, the soreness and other effects of DOMS begin to get reduced and finally get completely cured.

DOMS Prevention Measures

  • When you start training with a specific workout, try to do it with consistency which will help you have less soreness which will be completely gone after 1 week.
  • The second important preventive measure is to avoid certain types of intensive exercises which put extreme pressure on your muscles.
  • When you perform intensive workouts, it might lead you to develop more soreness and muscles pain and this will make your condition even worse.
  • Therefore, don’t begin your training with extreme or intensive workouts but start slowly with low intense workouts and then move to a little more intensity when you get experienced and stronger.
  • Another cool technique to avoid soreness is walking which greatly reduces the risk of side effects after workouts. Walking also reduces the chances of formation of lactic acid in muscles tissues.
  • Another important technique is to have a warm-up session before you begin your workouts and a post workout stretching session. Both of these activities will be quite effective in preventing the effects of DOMS.
  • The above are some of the simple techniques for prevention of DOMS occurrence. In addition to this, you must also understand the importance of good body feeding right after you have finished your workouts session.
  • The nutrients you feed your body are used during the recovery process which saves stored resources of energy in your body and it you ignore this important factor, it will become really difficult for you to avoid DOMS side effects.
  • You can also use glutamine rich supplements as the glutamine is one of the 20 amino acids and considered to be necessary for repairing, recovery and rebuilding process.