How to prevent Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness?
If your training was effective, you should feel some soreness the next day, and for two days at the most. If the second day is significantly worse than the first, and your soreness lasts into a 3rd day or beyond, you have what they call delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS), and it’s a sign that you trained too hard for you. There are no hard and fast rules on what is too hard as DOMS varies from individual to individual.
So now I want to talk about how to prevent Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness.
- Anti-Inflamatories
As DOMS is created as a result of inflamation, in the past it was considered a good idea for those susceptible to DOMS to take anti-inflamatories e.g. ibiprofen. However the downside of this approach is that anti-inflmatories reduce muscle growth and excessive use can damage your liver. Hence this approach has fallen out of favour.
2. Static Stretching
As its not that beneficial to stretch cold muscles, start with a gentle warm up to wam up your muscles. So both your joints and muscls are prepared and get the most benefits from stretching.
3. Constrast Showering
Ideally after stretching, jump in the shower and give yourself around of contrast hydrotherapy by alternating the temperature between hot and cold every two minutes. The contrast effect has definitely proven to be effective for reducing soreness and restoring muscle performance more quickly when its used the day after the workout, and any other day that a muscle is sore.
4. Warm Up
Ensuring that you warm up before exercising by lightly working the same muscles that you are going to train can go a long way to reducing DOMS and injuries.
References
Vaile JM, Gill ND, Blazevich AJ. The effect of contrast water therapy on symptoms of delayed onset muscle soreness. J Strength Cond Res. 2007 Aug;21(3):697-702.
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In previous posts in this series I have discussed the nature of pain, and how is evidence for the reflexology can be used for acute pain. In this article I want to discuss reflexology and chronic pain, as back pain is the most common chronic pain and it effects 8 out of 10 people in their lifetime, I will focus on studies that have looked at chronic lower back pain. An initial pilot study was carried out entitle Reflexology in the management of low back pain: a pilot randomised controlled trial by F Quinn, CM Hughes and GD Baxter. the results of which was published (see Complement Ther Med. 2008 Feb;16(1):3-8. doi: 10.1016/j.ctim.2007.05.001. Epub 2007 Jun 27.) Participants suffering from non-specific lower back pain were recurited and randomly assigned to a reflexology or sham group. Each patient received either a 40 minute reflexology treatment or a sham treatment according to which group they were in once per week for 6 consecutive weeks. The key measure of success was the measurement of pain on the visual analogue scale supplemented by the McGill pain questionnaire, Roland-Morris disability questionnaire, and SF-36 health survey. Outcome measures were performed at baseline, week 6, week 12 and week 18. The results incidicated that reflexology may have a positive effect on Lower Back Pain. This initial trail was followed up by a more comprehensive study of times were nurses were the patients, nursing is in the top ten professions for high incidence of lower back pain. Again this study was a double bind trial, and the same measurements of pain were used as in the trail. The study recruited 50 male and 50 female nurses with chronic lower back pain to take part in the trail. 40 minute sessions of reflexology or sham treatements were performed three times a week for two weeks. The study concluded Reflexology can be effective in reducing the severity of chronic back pain, i.e. it is able to reduce pain from moderate to mild. (see The Irainian Journal of Nursing Times (reference Iran J Nurs Midwifery Res. 2012 Mar-Apr; 17(3): 239–243.), focused on back pain in nurses) In conclusion it is clear that while the number and size of the studies are small there is a clear trend which demonstrates the effectiveness of Reflexology in helping to reduce pain levels especially in cases of lower back pain. Remember I offer a 15 minute taster Reflexology session for anyone who would like to try reflexology.
