# No Pain, No Gain The low down on Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness



## AChappell (Jun 1, 2011)

*Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) No Pain No Gain*

I decided to write this article to help clear up some common misconception about DOMS. I'm in a unique position regarding this subject since I recently wrote a thesis about the very subject for my Masters of Science in Nutrition and Metabolism degree entitled:

The Effects of Fish Oil Consumption on Muscle Soreness and Oxidative Stress after Eccentric Exercise

This was intervention is currently still on going as the principle investigator is looking to recruit more subjects over the next few months to improve the likelihood of finding any significant results. This study will hopefully be published in the next year and will be my first publication as a named author.

So with that in mind I hope you will consider the following article as an accurate and up to date with regards to DOMS

*What is DOMS?*

Delayed onset muscle soreness is described as a dull aching feeling that peaks between 1 -3 days although may last anything up to 7 -10 days (Cardinale et al 2011). While DOMS is caused as a result of eccentric or unaccustomed exercise (Byrnes et al. 1985). Studies by Byrnes found that exercises performed without an eccentric component using the visual analogue scale (VAS) -an established semi-quantative method for assessing muscle soreness- resulted in significant muscle soreness compared with concentric exercise alone or isometric exercise. It has long since been established that eccentric exercise is the primary cause of DOMS (eston et al. 2003). At this point it is important however to point out that although eccentric reps cause DOMS the correlation between that and muscle damage usually determined by cytoplasmic enzymes is poor. I.e just because your particularly sore doesn't mean you've caused a large amount of muscle damage that will result in recruitment of satellite cells and eventual growth. This has been shown by multiple studies komii et al 2000 and Nosaka 2011 provide a good reviews on the subjects. For anyone though questioning the methodologies of such studies it's worth noting that they often involve doing 10 to 20 sets of ten reps of purely eccentric exercise on a dynonometer, we done a similar thing in my study and believe me all my subjects reported intense DOMS and used considerable effort.

So for any personal trainers reading this, if you want to make your clients feel like they've worked extra hard or like they've got their money's worth be sure to include a couple of sets of negatives to cause that little extra bit of muscle soreness. However for the more savy trainers out there you should have realised that performing eccentricless reps means you can effectively add more volume and train bodyparts at a higher frequency if your muscles are less damaged/sore.

The reason why eccentric exercise causes muscle soreness as opposed to concentric exercise is because motor fibre recruitment is lower during the load bearing phase of the exercise so more tension and stress is placed on fewer fibres, while force development is actually greater during this phase resulting in more damage (Komii et al 2000). Now unlike a concentric contraction where actin and myosin crossbridges pass over each other via ATP splitting, eccentric exercise causes these fibres to be pulled apart splitting mechanically. This not only damages the sarcomere structure but also stretches it causing the disruption of z lines within the myofibril and loss of force production . This is particually a problem for the Type 2x muscle fibres that are responsible for large amounts of force production and it becomes obvious from this why your lifts are significantly reduced as a result of DOMS especially when you consider z bands are thinner in these fibres. This also typically occurs nearer the connective tissues of tendons where the myofibril is thinner.

For those not versed in skeletal muscle physiology see the figure below.

*Skeletal Muscle Physiology*









*What causes DOMS if it's not muscle damage?*

Multiple variables are responsible for DOMS such as the presence of leukocytes (white blood cells) generating oxidative bursts cleaning up damage, oedema (swelling), reactive oxygen nitrogen species (RONS), and muscle damage are all likely to contribute to DOMS rather than muscle damage alone. The release of cytosolic enzymes ( caused by damaging muscle fibres) such as creatine kinase (CK) and myoglobin, Ca+2 imbalance, contractile tissues are all likely to aggravate nervous system nociceptors that response to pain signals causing DOMS (Cheung et al. 2003). While RONS are also a culprit Wang et al. (2004) has shown the relationship between pain and RONs by inducing a super oxide dismutase (SOD) ( a enzyme that mops up oxidative stress) inhibitor in rats subject to pain via a hot plate. Wang et al. (2004) found rats had increased pain when SOD was inhibited.

While the loss of force production experienced via DOMS is likely to be part of the recovery processes that leads to inflammation tenderness and adaptation to exercise (Cheung et al. 2003). This is an important point here since it's worth noting that inflammation is a highly destructive process, too much is counter productive and leads to disease or in the case of training results in overtraining and a decline in strength. Gibala et al. (1995) investigated muscle force production and muscle damage found following eccentric exercise. These authors found that following eccentric exercise of the arm flexors, force production was significantly reduced for up to 96hrs post exercise, muscle biopsies revealed that up to 80% myofibre was disrupted after 48hrs. Studies by Lauritzen et al. (2009) and Gibala et al. (2000) found similar results with eccentric exercise reducing force production and causing a great deal of muscle damage and fibre disruption. So that's 48hrs and your sarcomere length is still greatly disrupted an important consideration for training frequency, and for DOMS. Further studies by Prasartwurth et al. (2005 & 2006) have also shown reduced maximum voluntary contraction (MVC) up to 9 days following eccentric exercise as well as changes in MVC at different angles, possibly attributed to sarcomere disruption and length. From these studies it's easy to see how using DOMS as an indicator of progress could be counter productive training until your muscles ache for days only results in large amounts of muscle damage and could easily result in a decline in your numbers. See figure below for training model.

*Training Model*









The red line represents a situation whereby you would be overtraining or over reaching, effectively causing too much damage to muscle tissue and not recovering quick enough for the next session compared to the yellow line which represents the ideal training zone.

*Highlighted below are what I would consider to be the key factors associated with the cause of DOMS.*

*DOMS*

*• Unaccustomed exercise using eccentric exercise*

*• High muscle force damage, Sarcolemma causing release of cytosolic enzymes CK and Myoglobin*

*• Damage to muscle contractile myofibrils and noncontractile structures*

*• Ca**2** and other metabolites accumulate at abnormal levels. reduced force production*

*• Inflammation, oedema. RONS generated via oxidative bursts and exercise aggravating nervous tissue*

* So can I or can't I used DOMS as a marker of progress? What can I use?*

The answer to this question is not really, so the old saying "No pain, No gain" isn't a sure fire sign your improving. Although DOMS is caused in part by muscle damage the links aren't that strong. The DOMS maybe simply caused by one of the other 4 factors highlighted above, you can't be sure that it's not the result of over expressed RONS because of your lack of antioxidants in your diet or damaged connective tissue rather than muscle damage. Maybe the great pump you got has caused extra swelling and you followed a high sodium diet for a few days and your holding extra water. In short it's not a great marker of progress especially when you consider as you adapt to the stresses of your workout/exercise/training so too will your muscles/connective tissue/immune system and antioxidant capacity if anything you may find your tolerance to DOMS increases and your incidence of DOMS decreases.

The best markers of training are simple measurements, photographs and a diary.

If you want to gauge your progress in the gym take photo's ever couple of months, measure your arms, legs, chest etc. with a tape and write it down and check your poundage's are going up, rather than how sore you feel.

When you consider how detrimental causing large amounts of muscle damage can be to your body and your progress I feel it's appropriate to finish this article by including my favourite bodybuilding quote by the great Lee Haney *"stimulate, don't annihilate"*


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## allbro75 (Mar 15, 2007)

Nice read, thanks for sharing. I will read again tomorrow and hopefuly take more of it in as its quite late just now.


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## AChappell (Jun 1, 2011)

tell me about it I thought it was goign to take me less than an hour to write, 2 hours later I was still at it, I couldn't bring myself to put in all the references at the end. Any questions though Allen and I'll try my best to answer them.


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## crazycal1 (Sep 21, 2005)

> "stimulate, don't annihilate"


honest to fcuking god i thought i`d come up with that phrase lmao!

great article andy, think i followed it, but its always nice to include a sunday sport version  ahem lol just incase i didnt grasp the finer points ..

actually i`m a lying fcuker i got lost when RON turned up..

i`m sure i could decipher it, im actually quite bright.. but 1am aside i`d need to be in A level mode to understand it..


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## Skygod47 (Oct 15, 2011)

Great article mate and thnx for taking the time to write it  . The more information available the better, especially for us beginners! I must show my ignorance though.... as Cal implied who is RON and will he/should he hurt me? :wink:


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## justheretosnoop (Jun 15, 2012)

Andy matey, i've said it before on here and i'll say it again: you're faaaaaaaaar too clever for your own good!

Great thread though....


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## freddee (Mar 2, 2009)

Nice read, a lot to take in, I have never matched up the saying "no pain no gain" with doms, but the effort to do those extra reps and not shying away from exercises that you dont like, and stepping out of your comfort zone.

If anything was to give me doms now it would probably be something like a game of five a side, but I am due a deload week shortly and i'm sure they will rear their ugly head again in a couple of weeks lol


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## AChappell (Jun 1, 2011)

Thanks for the response guy's any questions on the topic fire away.

RONS stands for reactive oxygen nitrogen species and is a umbrella term for pro oxidant molecules that include; Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) which are the consequence of oxidative stress and Nitrogen Oxygen Species (NOS) which is produced as a consequence of normal vascular function. They can exist as separate compounds or they can combine to produce some particularly harmful substances like peroxynitrate. Now you needn't worry too much about them, a few years ago there was this theory that oxidative stress caused aging but that's been pretty much defuncted now since you have various systems in place to help regulate them. Gomez-Caberra I believe showed oxidative stress is necessary for adaptations to exercise and some studies have shown RONS will actually increase force production, BUT before you run off for a preworkout there is a threshold like a inverted U proposed by Reid et al. 2008 it shows once RONS accumulation goes past a point force production will decline. All facts Charles Polquin failed to point out in a recent article he published on why aerobic exercise was going to kill us all.

Going back to my article it's like anything too much is not necessarily a good thing and RONS can be particularly destructive especially if you have a poor diet or over exercise, they'll also aggravate nervous tissue and cause pain in the form of DOMS.

Hope that clears up RONS.


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## AChappell (Jun 1, 2011)

Great question Fleg,

it's one that I don't have the answer to I'm afraid, since your venturing into one of the age old arguments of bodybuilding. Nautalis vs Weider, Arnold vs Mentzer. High volume vs low volume, which is best? You've obviously grasped one of the key points from the article, that eccentric exercise causes large amounts of muscle damage, specifically to type 2x fibres and that there is a great deal of strain put on these fibres. I think it emphasises the importance of the negative phase of the rep. There's more at play here though than simply DOMS , and muscle damage, consider connective tissue damage, spikes in hormone levels, metabolic adaptations and the effects on the CNS that sort of training would have compared to higher rep lighter weight training. Of course you could argue that both ways.

What your suggesting though is akin to the H.I.T style by Dorian or Heavy Duty by Mike Mentzer. Effectively working harder with less sets but maximising the intensity during that time. It certainly worked for those two, but then both trained with a relatively low frequency just like many bodybuilders, hitting one bodypart a week. I think your moving into an area that goes beyond the scope of this article.

Eccentric only training although useful method and you could incorporate it now and again as a shock factor for stimulating extra growth or at the end of a session should not be over done imo. Again lots of extended sets, rest pause and negative reps worked great for Dorain and Mike Mentzer but these guys where taking massive super physiological doses of anabolics so could recover and sustain high intensity week in week out. Until injuries caught up with Dorian anyway. For a natural bodybuilder I don't think it's quite the same case and will eventually catch up with you even if you are doing relatively low work/volume. I think the frequency is the main issue if you performed high intensity the studies show full recovery could still be between 7 - 9 days doing eccentric reps, fibre disruption for a similar period. I guess it could work if you had extended rest between workouts.

Anyway I hope that response satisfy even if it doesn't fully answer your question.


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## crazycal1 (Sep 21, 2005)

so essentially always focus on lowering weights slowly as thats when the damage is done.. you can lower 40% more than you can raise, so neg apect of ROM should be at least 40% slower than positive.

but if youre incorporating negs and going beyond failure be careful not to overtrain (gear or not imo, just gives you more leeway)

if you train frequently you have to use a lower percentage of effort than if you train 2x a week for example..

hence multiple exercises per body part or more sets per body part is used for higher frequency training.

hence when i`m going superheavy (relatively speaking) in my training thats why i only ever managed 2x aweek 

hence nowadays if i wanted to i could try higher frequency training and i meant be able to get it too work..

success of a routine is the interpretation of how much intensity used in conjuction with enuff rest for the body to recover.

if you use to much intensity and train to often you will lose strength, your body wont recover and adapt.. (n chances are you wont notice it..)

i think most people who get it wrong train too frequently and use too much intensity.

if these peeps dont give up they find they thrive on gear, but peeps who can only make gains whilst "on" is sommat else lol..


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## crazycal1 (Sep 21, 2005)

thanks for the likes dudes


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## AChappell (Jun 1, 2011)

hmmm perhaps people should be direct to this post a little more in that case fleg.


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