Common Myths About Muscle Soreness

Written By Dylan Kumar

Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) is not a good indicator of how effective a workout is. This phenomenon of DOMS is often experienced 24-72 hours following an intense workout and is commonly attributed to the idea that you must break muscle down for it to then build back up, or grow. Although that statement is correct, it does not accurately describe why your soreness is occurring, therefore to better understand this concept let’s debunk a few common myths and get to the root of your soreness. 

Why this is important?

Determining the origin of soreness following a workout becomes important as we are better able to drive recovery efforts by targeting the appropriate tissues. It is also important to understand that soreness is not an indicator of a good workout. You will find that as you become more conditioned, soreness will be harder to come by. Therefore, focus on your performance during training as a proxy of effectiveness rather than soreness in the following days. 

What can you do about your soreness?

Low intensity movement is one of the best things you can do for yourself in instances of soreness. To get muscle tissue to effectively flush the natural swelling that occurs during recovery, we need various tissues to slide & move over one another under an elevated body temperature. One of the best ways you can do that on your own is through movement! 


Common myths surrounding muscle soreness:

  1. DOMS comes from accumulation of lactic acid: No supporting evidence

    • Lactic acid peaks during exercises and is rapidly cleared immediately following exercise. Therefore, by the time DOMs sets in, lactic acid concentration is no longer at its highest. 

  2. DOMS comes from structural muscle damage: Little supporting evidence

    • A chemical marker of structural muscle damage is a chemical called creatine kinase. Evidence has found little to no correlation between creatine kinase concentration and subjective complaints of DOMS. 

  3. DOMS comes from muscular inflammation and swelling: No supporting evidence 

    • Inflammation and muscle swelling is thought to cause compression on nerve roots and subsequent pain & soreness perception. However, research has shown that supplementation of antioxidants, or anti-inflammatories used to limit swelling, had no effects on reducing subjective complaints of DOMS.

Lactic acid has very little to do with muscle soreness!

Takeaway

To understand the origin of your soreness, you should understand a type of tissue called fascia. Fascia surrounds every tissue and cell in the body, including muscles and bones. In order to determine if it's your connective tissue fascia that is the source of soreness, research has investigated the response of fascia tissue following exercise and how that correlates with subjective complaints of DOMS.  

Fascial thickening, or repair following exercise, has been found to correlate with peak intensity DOMS. This change in thickness can be attributed to swelling during the repair process of fascial tissue. Given that DOMS is a sensory related phenomenon, it makes sense that it stems from fascia rather than muscle as fascia is rich in sensory receptors. In fact, fascia has 3 times the sensory receptors as muscle and is much more sensitive compared to other tissues associated with muscles.

Regardless, the main takeaway is that soreness has no correlation with the “state” of your muscles and is therefore NOT a good measure of a workouts effectiveness. Rather, focusing on your performance during training as a proxy of effectiveness rather than soreness in the following days is the way to go! 



References

Dylan Kumar
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