alfresco
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Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS)
A recent post of mine, quoted below, regarding muscular soreness got me thinking ( I know . . . a dangerous prospect )
it might just deserves some further attention and discussion as we all have experienced it . . . from being crippled by it to
it being a minor nuisance.
What do we really know about muscular soreness?
We know how to induce it and how to avoid it. Is it necessary? Should it be avoided? Is it indicative of future growth? Is the
part of the muscle that get sore (really a misnomer as the actual ‘muscle’ does not get sore), but even if, is that the part that
will grow (think lower biceps)? And we know how eliminate it faster than if the muscle is left dormant. Why do some exercises
produce muscular soreness and some do not? And what part of the exercise is responsible for this soreness . . . eccentric or
concentric? How fast is the onset after exercising? Why does some soreness go away fast, while others seem to linger?
Do steroids have an effect and what effect might they be? Do machines produce less or more soreness than free weights?
Is soreness desirable? Do higher reps produce more soreness than heavy weights and if so, why? And does age effect how
fast and how sore you get? Do females get more or less sore than males? And what if anything do we learn when we get sore?
I don’t know all the answers . . . hell, I don’t even know all the questions but I do think this would be a fun topic to kick
around because we are all subject to it and experience it, to some degree or another. And it might be of particular interest
to the folks getting back into weightlifting / bodybuilding after a prolonged absence or perhaps the existing trainee when
he or she changes their exercise routine because somewhere along the way they will experience some degree of soreness.
What can we do about it . . . if anything?
So, pick a topic and let us get this show on the road. I am anxious for your share, to hear and learn from all your experiences,
. . . the good, the bad and the ugly.
I’ll start first.
“Training a ‘sore’ muscle will help to remove the soreness better than not training it at all . . . assuming the soreness
was exercise induced.
It is painful but it works. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but try it.
I have experimented with it after an absence from training. Take bb curls for instance. I did db curls with one arm, and
nothing for the other. The arm that was exercised rather then rested felt less sore by a bunch. Very noticeable.
Muscle soreness as induced by exercise is not a very well understood phenomena regardless of what people think.
Some exercises are capable of inducing great, if not crippling soreness while other exercises (think leg extensions)
produce zero soreness. Interesting.
We know how to induce and how to mitigate ‘it.’ And we don’t really know what actually gets sore as the actual
muscle does not have the type of nerves capable of registering pain as witnessed when you do a deep
intramuscular injection. Once you break the skin, pushing the needle in through the muscle is not painful, is smooth
as butter, painless, at least on me.
Could go on and on but don’t want to bore you . . . as this subject, muscle soreness, is not without controversy.”
A recent post of mine, quoted below, regarding muscular soreness got me thinking ( I know . . . a dangerous prospect )
it might just deserves some further attention and discussion as we all have experienced it . . . from being crippled by it to
it being a minor nuisance.
What do we really know about muscular soreness?
We know how to induce it and how to avoid it. Is it necessary? Should it be avoided? Is it indicative of future growth? Is the
part of the muscle that get sore (really a misnomer as the actual ‘muscle’ does not get sore), but even if, is that the part that
will grow (think lower biceps)? And we know how eliminate it faster than if the muscle is left dormant. Why do some exercises
produce muscular soreness and some do not? And what part of the exercise is responsible for this soreness . . . eccentric or
concentric? How fast is the onset after exercising? Why does some soreness go away fast, while others seem to linger?
Do steroids have an effect and what effect might they be? Do machines produce less or more soreness than free weights?
Is soreness desirable? Do higher reps produce more soreness than heavy weights and if so, why? And does age effect how
fast and how sore you get? Do females get more or less sore than males? And what if anything do we learn when we get sore?
I don’t know all the answers . . . hell, I don’t even know all the questions but I do think this would be a fun topic to kick
around because we are all subject to it and experience it, to some degree or another. And it might be of particular interest
to the folks getting back into weightlifting / bodybuilding after a prolonged absence or perhaps the existing trainee when
he or she changes their exercise routine because somewhere along the way they will experience some degree of soreness.
What can we do about it . . . if anything?
So, pick a topic and let us get this show on the road. I am anxious for your share, to hear and learn from all your experiences,
. . . the good, the bad and the ugly.
I’ll start first.
“Training a ‘sore’ muscle will help to remove the soreness better than not training it at all . . . assuming the soreness
was exercise induced.
It is painful but it works. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but try it.
I have experimented with it after an absence from training. Take bb curls for instance. I did db curls with one arm, and
nothing for the other. The arm that was exercised rather then rested felt less sore by a bunch. Very noticeable.
Muscle soreness as induced by exercise is not a very well understood phenomena regardless of what people think.
Some exercises are capable of inducing great, if not crippling soreness while other exercises (think leg extensions)
produce zero soreness. Interesting.
We know how to induce and how to mitigate ‘it.’ And we don’t really know what actually gets sore as the actual
muscle does not have the type of nerves capable of registering pain as witnessed when you do a deep
intramuscular injection. Once you break the skin, pushing the needle in through the muscle is not painful, is smooth
as butter, painless, at least on me.
Could go on and on but don’t want to bore you . . . as this subject, muscle soreness, is not without controversy.”