7 Ways to Prevent and Cope with Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS)

     Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) refers to the muscular aches and pains that you experience anywhere from 24 to 48 hours after a workout. This pain could be due to microscopic tears in the muscles because of weight training or it could lactic acid production in the body when the training takes on an anaerobic nature.

     While doctors have not been able to fully determine the cause of DOMS, the general consensus is that it’s not harmful and your muscles will only ache if they’re stretched, contracted or you place pressure on them.

     For example, if you did several sets of barbell squats today; your thigh muscles may be aching badly the next day. However, if you’re sitting or lying down, the muscles won’t hurt. It’ll only hurt when you walk, squat or do other movements that affect these muscles. Generally, the pain will dissipate after a few days. So, there’s really nothing to panic about.

     In this article, we’ll look at 7 ways you can help to alleviate the aches and pains in your muscles.

Foam rollers

     Foam rollers are great for helping to get the blood circulating around your muscles. You can purchase one of these from Amazon or your gym might have a few for you to use. By using foam rollers, you can enhance your recovery time and also reduce muscular fatigue and pain.

     All you need to do is lie on the roller and roll on the affected areas. Your bodyweight and gravity will do the rest. The roller will apply pressure on the tight muscles and improve flexibility and sort out any ‘kinks’ in the muscles.

Compression tights
     

Compression tights are most effective when worn during the actual workout to prevent DOMS. This especially applies for training that involves the leg muscles such as running or resistance training that targets the legs.

     These tights will hold your muscles in place and boost blood circulation to the areas that are affected by the stress and strain of exercise.

Hot and cold baths

     This is a simple technique. All you need to do is adjust the temperature of the water during your shower. So, you’ll be showering in cold water for 3 minutes followed by warm water for the next 3 minutes. Alternate this for about 5 or 6 times.

     What this will do is that it will cause your blood vessels to expand when the water is warm… and when you switch to cold water, the body will send the warm blood to the vital organs.

     This will boost blood circulation and reduce the amount of lactate in the blood. It’s also said that this method of showering has detoxifying properties.

Muscle rubs

     Muscle rubs could be creams or solutions that are topically applied to your affected areas. You can easily purchase them from any health store. Most can be bought over-the-counter and you won’t need a doctor’s prescription.
Sea salts

     Soaking yourself in a bath tub of Epsom sea salts will help reduce your muscular pain too. Your body will absorb the magnesium in these salts through the skin and flush out the lactic acid in the muscles. This will help to relax your body and bring about pain relief.

Massage

     Massage is another great way to relieve pain. While studies have shown that massage doesn’t really reduce the pain, it does get the blood circulation going and helps to hasten recovery.

     Always get someone who is trained in sports massage to massage you. It may cost you money but you’ll be safer. Asking an inexperienced friend or family member to massage you might lead to injuries that cause more pain than DOMS and may actually need professional medical treatment.

Stretching

     Stretching is highly underrated. All too often people hastily do a few simple stretches before a workout and rush to get to the actual workout. Light stretches for about 7 minutes will really help to get your body warmed up.

     While you shouldn’t stretch too much before a resistance training session, it does help to do some light cardio to get the blood flowing and warm up the muscles. Even a 5-minute brisk walk on the treadmill followed by a few stretches will be really helpful.

     Your muscles will be warmed up and you’ll be less likely to get severe muscular aches and pains the next day. Do remember to stretch for at least 10-minutes after your workout is over.

     Stretching several times the following day will help too. It’ll keep your body limber and improve blood circulation which will aid in mitigating any possible DOMS that may arise.

     Do apply these 7 tips where possible and you’ll not be prone to muscle soreness. Other than that, train progressively and don’t try to do too much too soon. Most people who suffer severe DOMS usually take on more than the body can handle. Exercise prudence and train sensibly and you’ll be able to train more often without having to rest too much due to pain.

Eric Dempsey

MS, ISSA Master Trainer

Chaplain Paul Voorhees Ministry

How to Manage Your Stress by Staying Organized

     Being organized may not seem like a powerful technique when it comes to reducing stress. After all, we mostly hear of methods like meditation, controlled breathing, visualization, etc. as being effective for managing stress. No one really talks about being neat and organized.

     Yet, keeping things simple and organized is one of the best ways to reduce irritation in your life. When you minimize irritation and microaggressions, you also help yourself to de-stress without realizing it.

     For example, if your desk at work is cluttered and you can’t find a document that you need, you’ll end up searching for it and wasting time and effort. If you can’t find it after a few minutes of searching, you’re going to lose patience and start getting irritable. It’s definitely going to stress you out.

     This applies to any area in your life. Can’t find your car keys just when you’re about to leave the house? That’s aggravating. Sat down on the chair to watch TV but the remote is nowhere in sight? Time to start cursing as you flip over the couch cushions. Open the fridge and pour yourself a glass of milk only to spit it out and gag because the milk is sour and has gone bad? That’s annoying and even mildly funny the following day.

     All these little stresses when repeated on a daily basis will lead to frazzled nerves and an irritable nature that gets triggered easily. All of these could have been avoided if you were organized. One of the best ways to reduce stress is to be neat and tidy. Like Benjamin Franklin once said, “A place for everything and everything in its place.”

Start Tidying

     Tidy up your home, your office, your desk, your everything. Whatever you use should be neat and organized. The Japanese are very strong believers in tidiness and their factories and offices are usually in impeccable order. Employees are expected to keep their desks neat and organized by following the 5S rule.

     That essentially means straightening up and only keeping what you need. This is known as decluttering. You’ll store whatever you need in its rightful place. You’ll clean up after yourself and strive to maintain this sense of order daily.

     If you can maintain this on a regular basis, you’ll find that your life becomes much easier. Like they say, organized people are just too lazy to look for things… and you won’t have to because you’ll know exactly where everything is.

     Imagine the amount of stress you won’t have to face from constantly looking for misplaced items. That in itself is good enough reason to get everything in order ASAP.

Keep a List or Backlog

     One of the biggest reasons that people feel overwhelmed is because they try to keep too many things in their head. Projects, family commitments, pending things that need to be done… and there’s so many things to do but not enough time to get them done.

     Mentally it all seems like too much to handle. The first thing to do is write down all that you need to do. Keep a list and add on to it whatever new issues crop up that need to be taken care of.

     Now you have a list of exactly what you need to do and it’ll seem more manageable. In your head, it all seems too much to handle. Once you have it on paper and you start checking off what you need to do, you’ll be more focused, less stressed and be amazed at how fast you complete your tasks.

Kaizen

     The Japanese have a practice known as ‘Kaizen’ which is just a way of saying continual improvement. What that means is that you constantly strive to be better at what you do by making small improvements over time.

     For example, if you’re about to go to bed and your living room is a little messy, you may wish to clean it up a little before you hit the sack. This will maintain the order in your house.

     If you have a ton of documents in your office that need a proper filing system, you could dedicate 15 minutes a day every day before you leave work to file your paperwork. Over time, you’ll have organized everything well. Some projects are time-consuming. By doing a little daily, you’ll be able to complete these massive tasks with relative ease.

     Apply the 3 tips above and get your life organized. Get the small stuff organized so that your energy is not sapped by little annoyances and you’ll be better able to handle the big stuff in life without getting overly stressed.

“Life is too complicated not to be orderly.” – Martha Stewart

Photo Credit: https://www.fastweb.com/student-life/articles/how-to-stay-organized-all-semester-long

Eric Dempsey

MS, Master Sergeant, 

US Army Retired.

Chaplain Paul Voorhees Ministry