Whenever you begin a new training routine, it’s normal to feel some soreness in your muscles after working out.

This soreness is called Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (or DOMS), and can be a real pain in the butt! 

However this sensation is a totally normal part of working out, and it does get better over time.

DOMS usually comes in the form of stiffness or pain in the muscles that you exercised in the last few days. This soreness is usually worse at the beginning of a new training program, and it affects almost all exercisers of all levels.

While DOMS can be slightly uncomfortable, your soreness shouldn’t be debilitating! The worst DOMS for most people tends to happen at the beginning of a new program, or when you try a new exercise for the first time. 

With a consistent training routine you should experience of DOMS less and less as the weeks go by. This doesn’t mean that your workouts aren’t effective! 

Many people make the mistake of using soreness as a measure of whether or not their training program is working. They think that if they don’t get sore after a workout, then it wasn’t a “good workout.” This is not the case! 

Whether or not you get sore—and how sore you get—is more an indication of how good your body has gotten at recovering from training. You can still build muscle and burn fat without experiencing DOMS. 

In fact, many advanced lifters and athletes rarely experience soreness—and yet they continue to progress in their training.

To know whether your training program is working, keep an eye on your measurements (e.g., body weight and inches around your waist and muscles).

So why, exactly, do we get sore after a workout?

You may hear people mistakenly attribute DOMS to a buildup of lactic acid in the muscles—however this is a common misconception. Lactic acid build-up is responsible for the “burn” and soreness you feel during exercise. You feel it when your body is reaches the limit of the anaerobic lactic acid system to energize your muscles. You may feel this burning sensation during high-intensity endurance workouts or while you are performing resistance training for hypertrophy.

DOMS—the soreness you feel after you workout—is an entirely different system. It’s actually an immune system response, similar to the healing process you feel when you are injured or sick.

That’s because when you do a hard workout and stress your muscles, it creates microscopic tears in the muscle fibers. 

After your workout and are at rest, your body heals these micro-injuries by flooding the damaged tissue with blood, proteins, hormones, and cellular fluid. This flood causes inflammation by putting pressure on your tissues, which can irritate your nerves and cause pain.

During this “inflammation cascade,” your muscle fibers are repaired and they actually grow in size (albeit on a microscopic level). This allows your muscles to  be able to handle the same load in future workouts without taking as much damage.

The amount of soreness that you feel after your workouts should go down over time (as long as you’re consistent with your training). 

How sore you get can be affected by a variety of factors—including the intensity of your workouts, how sufficiently you fuel your body with proper nutrition (including lots of protein), as well as your genetics.

“Normal” soreness is usually mild discomfort or stiffness in the muscles when you get up from sitting still. You can usually relieve this stiffness by moving around or by stretching the muscles—which makes moderate steady state cardio or yoga great “off day” workouts to practice between your higher intensity days. 

If, however, you feel throbbing pain even at rest, or if your soreness lasts more than a few days after your workout, it may be a sign that your training program is too intense and you need to bring it down a notch. If this soreness persists, you may need to see a physician to rule out any possible injuries or other conditions.

If your soreness is annoying you, try to get up and stay moving as much as you can. Sitting still will allow the stiffness to set in! But try not to do anything too intense (like high intensity cardio circuits, or some other high impact activity), because your body needs this time to recover. Pushing yourself without letting your body recover can set you up for injury or chronic pain. 

You can also alternate cold and hot compresses on the affected area. Cold compresses help reduce inflammation (but hold them on the area for no more than 10 minutes at a time). Hot compresses will increase blood flow and are great for alleviating stiffness. Some people also take inflammation reducing drugs like ibuprofen, but check with your doctor first before taking anything (even if it’s over the counter).

Jayd Harrison (Jaydigains)

Jayd Harrison (Jaydigains) is a personal trainer and affiliate streamer on Twitch. She has been an active trainer since 2014 and now specializes in comprehensive weight loss coaching. Check out some of Jayd’s coaching videos on Youtube, or join Jayd live on Twitch on Tuesdays & Thursdays 11am EST for a Fit Q&A session.

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