Delayed-Onset Muscle Soreness reduced by effective Warm-Up
Delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS) is frequently experienced when someone commences a new exercise. You've just begun a new exercise program in the gym or have taken up running. The following day the muscles you have been exercising are sore, achy and tired. This is Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness and is believed to be caused by eccentric muscle contractions doing damage to muscle fibres and connective tissue.
Many techniques have been considered in attempts to reduce the significance of delayed-onset muscle soreness including stretching, massage, cryotherapy, ultra-sound and warm-up and cool-down. Recent Australian research has indicated that an effective warm-up may reduce the impact of delayed-onset muscle soreness (1).
Four study groups received either a warm-up and cool-down, warm-up only, cool-down only or neither warm-up nor cool-down. All the study participants performed exercise designed to induce delayed-onset muscle soreness which involved walking backwards downhill on an inclined treadmill for 30 minutes. The warm-up and cool-down involved walking forwards uphill for 10 minutes on an inclined treadmill.
The results of the experiment was the muscle soreness 48 hours after exercise was reduced by a statistically significant amount for those who had been in either of the warm-up study groups. However there was no statistically measurable benefit for those in the cool-down groups.
The researchers hypothesised that the increase in muscle temperature associated with warm-up could increase the compliance of structures in series with myofibrils which would reduce the degree of stretch experienced by the myofibrils. As DOMS is thought to be due to damage of stretched myofibrils then warm-up could decrease the myofibrillar damage that occurs with a new exercise. The 10-minute warm-up used in this study may not necessarily be optimal and a longer warm-up may result in a greater reduction in the muscle soreness.
Other people believe that cool-down after exercise will reduce DOMS. This view was not supported by the results of this study. Cool-down is performed after the events that cause the eccentric exercise-induced muscle damage and the only way for cool-down to reduce muscle soreness is by interfering with the cascade of events that follow the initial damage.
(1) R. Law and R. Herbert. Australian Journal of Physiotherapy 2007 Vol 53. Pg 91-95
