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Today, 09 February 2010

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What is delayed onset muscle soreness? Everyone who has trained, for any sport, will know about the muscle stiffness and soreness which appears up to three days after the first major training session of the season. that important race, or even when beginning strength training to try and improve your running.

Over the past ten years there has been a lot of research aimed at examining what type of exercise causes delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) and what can relieve it.

Which exercise causes delayed onset muscle soreness?

There are three main types:

• Unaccustomed exercise
• Eccentric exercise
• Exhaustive exercise

Any type of exercise which you are not used to will place tremendous strain on your muscles and tendons and the tissue which connects it all. This will result in muscle soreness, until the body is used to the particular type of strain.

Eccentric exercise is that which involves contraction of a muscle while it is simultaneously lengthening. This produces muscle fibre damage which results in muscular soreness.

An example of this is downhill running. As you run downhill, the quadriceps (the muscles on the front of the thigh) contract, to prevent you from falling forward. At the same time they lengthen.

Downhill running causes eccentric contractions of the calves, quadriceps and buttocks, which is the cause of extreme muscle soreness after training or racing on a hilly course.

Endurance exercise, particularly to exhaustion, is the third type of exercise which produces DOMS. Long-distance running, such as a marathon or ultra-marathon, seems to cause micro-trauma to the muscle fibres after their energy supplies have been depleted. This results in DOMS.

What is actually happening to your muscles?

When you get DOMS, research has shown that it is as a result of structural and chemical damage to the cell wall of the muscle fibre, tendons and connective tissues.

Damage to cell walls causes chemicals within the tissues to leak, resulting in swelling around the muscle fibres. The nerves which surround the muscles and tendons are then stimulated, resulting in soreness.

However, DOMS is typically only felt 24 to 72 hours after exercise, suggesting that there has to be an accumulation of these chemicals before the nerve endings are stimulated.

How can DOMS be treated?

DOMS is a result of swelling, so treatment should be by reducing this. Many people use either ice, anit-inflammatory drugs, or additional activity to the muscle group.

Research has shown that, although ice will reduce swelling, it does not reduce soreness. However, anti-inflammatory drugs such as aspirin or ibuprofen will both reduce swelling and soreness.

If you want an effective, non-drug method of reducing soreness though, try a light bout of exercise. This is one of the reasons for a easy day after a track session, hill training or race. It appears that the action of working the muscles pumps the chemicals out of the affected muscle groups. So the worst thing you can do the day after a race, is nothing!

DOMS can be used

When you are training or racing, it is the muscle fibres which are depleted of glycogen which are the most susceptible to the micro-trauma which causes DOMS. So "hitting the wall" may be caused not only by glycogen depletion, but by muscle fibre damage.

While most people carbo-load to prevent glycogen depletion, few incorporate training which aims to protect muscle fibres from structural damage

Reproducing DOMS-causing exercise while training can help protect muscle fibres against future damage for several weeks. These specific exercises may even help prevent you from "hitting the wall".

Using downhill running

Downhill running is one method of safely inducing DOMS and strengthening muscle fibres. Because downhill running produces more injury than running on the flat, it is important to do it safely.

A workout described in Peak Running suggests the following workout.

Warm up thoroughly over about 2 km. Find a 200 to 400 m gradual downhill on smooth grass or dirt and run four to eight downhill strides at 75 to 80% effort - or your approximate marathon pace. Jog slowly back to the top after each downhill run. Warm-down afterwards with an easy jog and a good stretch.

Repeat this workout every two to three weeks, with the effort level increasing to 85% on the second session and to 90 to 95% in each subsequent session.

After each workout you should notice a marked reduction in soreness, or none at all. You'll also become a better downhill runner.

Using ultra-distance running

The second suggested way to prevent DOMS is ultra-distance running. This increases your resistance to damage in races while practicing at a less intense level than in the race.

These runs should last for 30 minutes to one hour longer than your expected marathon finish time, but should be at a much slower pace than your marathon pace. The total time spent running is important here, not the distance run.

These ultra-distance runs should only be done once every three to four weeks, with the last completed four to five weeks before the marathon.

Ideally you should try and incorporate both types of training into your running program, but time may not allow you to. In which case decide which workout best matches your running ability and available time.

Neither downhill running or extra long distance runs exactly matches the intensity of a marathon race, but both can provide protection against the muscle fibre damage which contributes to "hitting the wall".