What Is Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness?

00:00Real quick, the only ask I could ever have of you guys is to help spread the word so we can help more women lose body fat, build muscle, reach their goals, and feel insanely confident. And the only way we can do that is if you rate, review, and share this podcast. So the single thing I ask for you to do is if you could leave a review. It will take you 10 seconds, and it will mean the absolute world to me and may change the world of someone else. You're going to experience it when you're a beginner. You're going to experience it one year plus. You're going to experience it at year 4, year 6, year 8, year 10, year 15.

00:34DOMS doesn't ever really go away. It's something that just happens in terms of certain aspects of what you may be doing during your training protocol, right? You won't experience it all of the time, but know when you do certain aspects like these first three points I'm going to talk to, this is where you raise your highly likelihood of experiencing DOMS if you do these first three. Yo, yo, yo. What is going on, you guys?

01:05Welcome back to The WarriorBabe Show with Nikki Stott, co-founder of Warrior Babe. And on this podcast, we talk about mindset, methodologies, and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong, and feel insanely confident. I am your host, Nikki Stott, and welcome to today's episode, episode 147, where, once again, this is coming from when I dropped the questions box on my Instagram story, which I need to do that way more often because so many questions came from that box that I have taken and have elaborated via answers through podcast episodes here.

01:45And it's been such a help because sometimes, like I shared with you guys on a previous podcast, my mind just kind of goes blank on concepts to share with you guys. So here we are answering another question that came from that questions box, and it's specifically around DOMS, which is delayed onset muscle soreness. And I'm going to talk a little bit about what that is, but what I'm going to really dive into talking about is why you may get DOMS even after lifting for a period of time.

02:19Specifically, the question was like why I get it even after lifting for a year plus. But I mean, even to this day, like, what, 10, 9, 10 years into my journey, I still experience DOMS. So there's reasons why. I'm going to specifically talk to five. But first, I just have to share with you guys, man, do you guys ever, this is totally off topic, but I feel so freaking good coming into this podcast and recording it because I just spent the last two and a half hours cleaning my entire space and getting it back to control

02:52and like watering all of my plants, which now is like literally an hour long process because I think I've upwards of like 15 plants and they're, and this isn't even a plug, but I should get a plug for it. But they're called easy plant. And all you have to do is fill up the canister. Water, like it has like an area for water on the side and it waters itself over like a month, month and a half is what I just realized. Like it took, it was like a month and a half to refill these suckers up. And I got them about a month and a half ago.

03:22Anyway, so they water themselves because the thing was me, I was like, I'm getting plants and I'm killing all of my plants. I have three left of probably when I moved in here was like I had five or some, a little bit more than that. And I killed them all. And I'm like, I really want plants because they're super freaking cool and they held with the air and like all this stuff and they make things look pretty. But I couldn't keep them alive to save my life. So I checked, I got, I was getting ads for easy plant and oh my God, it's freaking amazing. So yeah, if you guys love plants, but you also were the same boat as me keeping them alive,

03:56go check out easy plant because you only have to fill up and water them once a month, if not like every six weeks. Anyway, I spent the whole, my, my, my whole place is clean. Two and a half hours. I even cleaned out old clothes from my closet, threw them in a bag. And now we're going to chip them off to help people that need clothes, you know? And then like I dusted everything. I cleaned everything. I put things away that were just like out and clothes are away. Oh, okay. Anyway, and ran. But can you guys feel me on that? Because, you know, we all have those times where you just spend, like you're just locked in on cleaning

04:30and the outcome is just, ah, it feels so good. Okay. Anyway, back to the episode. So what we're going to talk about today is delayed onset muscle soreness or known as DOMS and why you may be experiencing it for, like it's totally normal. It's totally normal anywhere throughout your entire journey. Um, but maybe what I gathered from that question was that someone is experiencing it more often than not, like post lifting year, lifting for a year plus.

05:02And so typically what happens is when you work out, you, you may experience DOMS typically within 12 to 24 hours after workout. And this can last upwards up to 72 hours. And what it, if you guys don't know exactly what it may feel like, but it's, it's like soreness, it's stiffness, it's reduced muscle strength and function. Like let's say you're going in, you did legs, um, for example, and then 24 to 48 hours later,

05:33you have that, like the, uh, muscle soreness, like the DOMS. But like, it's not going away of upwards of like 72 hours or more. This is where we're probably going to dive into like what I'm talking about here that may answer some of your questions. Cause it really should be going. And then like you, if you are at a hit legs again, 72 hours after that, and you're still feeling sore, you're not going to have as much muscle strength or function. It's going to be entirely reduced. It's going to, you're going to feel sore. You're going to feel stiff. But those, that's, I would say, uh, an extreme aspect of, we may even be touching into like

06:09rhabdo at that point, but I'm not going to dive into that specific topic today. Um, I just want to keep this centered on DOMS. And so here are a couple of reasons, specifically five that I want to dive into. And really the last two are the ones that you would want to pay attention to. So just make sure you guys still stay with me here all the way through the all five of them. All five of them are really important to know and will, um, add to your like arsenal, your toolbox of lifting on like knowledge and, and, and, you know, concepts and things

06:44like that. So there's several reasons why you would still be experiencing DOMS, um, even after lifting for more than one year. I mean, like I said, the beginning, like I still experienced this upwards of nine to 10 years into my journey. So there's nothing wrong with it. There's just like, it's almost like knowing, uh, it's, there's something wrong with it. Once you get past like the 72 hours, I said, I'm not going to bring that here to this podcast. Um, there's, it's good to just understand why this is happening and to know it's not alarming until maybe if you're still feeling the soreness after like 72 hours.

07:18And it's like, just for insight, it's like, you, it's really for legs. It's really hard to like walk around. Like you're waddling around. You're like looking like a penguin walking. It's like sore to touch. The muscles are consistent, consistently contracted. That's something that you would want to worry about. But DOMS, um, this is just to shed light on exactly what it is and why you may be experiencing it. Especially when you will experience it throughout many years of your journey. One year plus, regardless, you're going to experience it when you're a beginner. You're going to experience it one year plus.

07:50You're going to experience it at year four, year six, year eight, year 10, year 15. DOMS doesn't ever really go away. It's, it's something that just happens in terms of, um, certain aspects of what you may do, be doing during your training protocol, right? You may not experience it all the time, by the way, I should probably pin that in there. Like you're not, it's not that you're going to work out. And then like I worked out yesterday and I really don't, I'm feeling sore, but like it's a good sore, right? Um, you won't experience it all of the time, but know when you do certain aspects, like

08:24these first three points I'm going to talk to, this is where you can, you will, uh, raise your highly likelihood of experiencing DOMS, uh, if you do these first three. And then like throughout your like training protocol, you like during a block that you're in or programming that you're in, you may notice that by getting towards like the last couple of weeks of that or last two weeks or last week, you're not really experiencing that many, that much DOMS. And here's why. So the first one is you're introducing new exercises or new exercises or routines is like

09:00the first one you're introducing new exercises or you're changing your workout routine that targets different muscles or different ways to engage those muscles, uh, that were previously less active. Right. And so that can lead to you experiencing more DOMS. So for example, you guys that may be starting a new programming, um, or you're opening up a new, uh, you know, example of a, like a, we call it, like I like to call it blocks. Um, but you're opening up that you're, you're, you're done with the last month's programming

09:31or last six months programming, you're opening up a new one. And maybe you are incorporating new isolation exercises, for example, than you were including in the last programming that you were doing. And just by bringing in different ways to target the muscles or different ways to engage the muscles that maybe were previously less, not as, not as active in the last one, you're bringing it into this new programming and you're making them more active.

10:01You're going to experience some type of soreness because your muscles are like, Hey, I haven't been like, I haven't been paid attention to in like the last, uh, six weeks. Now I'm here again, and I'm starting to get attention to an X, Y, and Z. So that's just like a, uh, high level explanation of how you, you experiencing a little bit of soreness, right? Or let's say that you change your workout routine to go from a split body to a full body or from a full body to a push pull, regardless, any way, high level talking to this, the first

10:36one that you will experience doms, no matter what aspect of your journey you are on. is when you're introducing new exercises and you're opening up a new routine to follow because you can't target every single muscle in your body in one routine. Some muscles will, um, not get much attention than others. And then when you open a new training protocol, maybe you're going to put the others to rest. You're going to bring new, uh, attention to the muscles that you weren't making as active in the last programming. You know what I'm saying? Trying to say in a couple of different ways so that it lands, uh, for you listeners.

11:11So that's one of the first ones. Um, and again, like these first three are going to be more of the reason why you will experience it regardless of where you're at in your journey, whether you're year four, year five, year one, year eight, you're going to, every time you switch up a new training protocol, you're going to experience some type of, uh, delayed onset muscle soreness. The second one is upping the intensity of your workouts, whether that's by increasing the weights, whether that's changing the number of repetitions, AKA the different facets, a

11:43progressive overload, um, reducing stress periods between sets. This all can lead to soreness as your muscles adapt to this new type of stress, right? So same thing as like kind of pairing it to the first one. Um, you know, you're opening up a new training block and maybe this training block, you're maybe doing the same type of exercise, uh, but you're just playing around with a strategy of progressive overload, which may be okay. Instead of doing the same weight that I was doing with squats, I'm going to increase my

12:16weight this, this next, uh, block, or I'm going to change up the repetitions. I'm going to go for more weight, less repetition, or I'm going to go for less weight, higher repetition, or I'm going from, you know, a 90 second rest period to 60 seconds. Whatever have you, whatever you're doing here, um, you're going to experience some type of onset muscle soreness because your muscles are trying to adapt to this new type of stress that you are putting onto them. So, and that's by you increasing this type of intensity to your, to your programming,

12:51you know, same thing situation is if you're doing an isolation exercise, if you are doing a rear don't fly and you are, uh, you same thing, like using the squat example, you're increasing your weight, um, than you were from the last block or you're, uh, increasing your weight and lowering your repetitions or you're lowering your weight and you're increasing your repetitions or you're reducing your rest period from, um, 60 seconds to like 45 seconds

13:21because that's an isolation exercise. So I would always, you know, take less rest with isolation exercises because they can get hammered pretty good, um, and they're small muscle groups. So, but anyway, you get what I'm saying, right? I'm trying to use a bunch of different examples to paint the picture for you in understanding, um, and understanding it and just being able to have a click for you. Um, one of the other, so the first one was new exercises and new routines, right? The second one was increasing the intensity, um, and changing around certain facets of progressive

13:57overload that will make your muscles need to adapt to new stress. Another one is, Hey, Hey, just want to drop a huge appreciation to you guys listening to the show. It means a lot. I hope you guys are enjoying it and there's so much more to come with it. If you are enjoying it, hit the subscribe button. I'd appreciate that tons. And also it would help this podcast reach others who need to hear these messages too. Thanks so much guys. Let's get back to the show. Eccentric movements. So this is exercises that involve, um, where the, where you're lengthening the muscle under

14:30tension, such as like, for example, you're in a downward motion of a squat or you're in the lowering phase of a bicep curl. Ladies, are you feeling frustrated with body changes you're experiencing during menopause? It's time to take control. If you're between 45 and 65 years old and tired of struggling with body fat and muscle loss, warrior babe is here for you at warrior B we've helped over 18,000 women, just like

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15:36Those are particularly known to increase the likelihood of you of causing a delayed onset muscle soreness. Even if, you know, even if you're an experienced lifter and you're doing, you're experiencing, you know, soreness from these types of specific movements, this is, you know, regardless where you're at in your journey, you are, like I keep saying, likely going to experience this

16:09type of delayed onset muscle soreness. So getting back to that number three point though, when you're in that lowering aspect, you're just putting a little bit more time under tension here than maybe you were doing in previous blocks before. Maybe it's an emphasis, right? I love to put negatives into or tempo work into my routines. And so if I'm putting an emphasis on that, that I didn't put an emphasis on in the previous block, then I'm likely going to experience the late onset muscle soreness because I'm slowing down

16:41the movement and putting more time under tension and causing more stress to that specific muscle than I have been doing previously. So no matter what, as you play around with your programming and you add more exercises, you're changing up your routines, you're doing different aspects, like this, this third one is a different aspect of progressive overload. It's just you doing either negatives or time under tension, which is another, like, you know what I said in the last one, the second one. But regardless, these three, like I said at the beginning, no matter where you're at in

17:16your journey, you are going to, you're going to experience that. If you're doing this the right way, right? If you are changing up your workout routines every, and listen to me loud and clear, every like four to six to eight weeks, it's not every single week. If you are doing and changing your workouts and your exercises every single week, you're not giving your muscle and your body time to adapt to the stress that you want it to. And you're just constantly changing things up and your muscles are like, what the heck are you doing? Like, I'm trying to get stronger and more and be more adaptive to these to these routines.

17:50And you're not giving your muscle that time or that type of consistency that it needs in order to to experience that type of outcome. So those of you guys, I love it. I hear it all the time. I'm bored. I want new exercises. There's a there's a method to the madness. And if you want to get stronger, you have to consistently do the same exercises in a set amount of time, like four to six to eight weeks. If you guys are totally understanding of that concept, then I would love to push people to like six to eight weeks where some of you guys are like, nah, I need to change up my exercises

18:24after every four because I get bored. And that's totally fine. But you have to at least like minimally do the same things for four weeks. Okay. And so no matter where you're at from, you know, from being a new beginner to being six months in to being one year in to being two years in to being 10 years in, you will by you constantly changing these types of plans and introducing new exercises and playing with progressive overload, you will experience DOMS. But kind of like what I said at the beginning, which I meant to circle back to this, with the

18:56new workout routines and new blocks that I mentioned, you know, you will feel the the DOMS in like the first maybe two to three weeks, you will feel like that type of soreness. And also I want to highlight too, soreness is not an indicator of you having a good or bad workout. Okay. Just push yourself, challenge yourself. If, you know, the last few reps of a set should be challenging, that is what deems an effective workout. But anyway, as you get to like the last week or last two weeks, you may not be feeling as

19:30sore as you were at the beginning of the said training block or the said opening up of the new program because your muscles have adapted here. Adapted here. They have undergone and have become used to the type of stress you're putting your body, your muscles into. So that's why we always say, okay, you're ready to change it up. You're ready for something new. You're ready for your muscles to have a new challenge. And that's how you get stronger. And that's how you build more muscle. Okay. So those three.

20:01Okay. It was new routines, new programmings. You're going to feel a type of soreness within 12 to 24 hours with you opening up, you know, new exercises that maybe your body hadn't. Those muscles were previously less active. And then the other one is increasing the intensity, whether it be that you're changing up your weights, whether it be changing up your repetition, whether it be that you're changing your rest periods, whether it be the third one that you are increasing time and attention with tempo work or negatives or X, Y, and Z. You will experience dumps no matter what.

20:34You will have some type of soreness. And then some of you guys may be like, well, what about if I don't have that type of soreness? Then I would say without, you know, seeing and working with you directly, I'd be like, it's probably 90% of the time that you are just going through the motions and you really need to challenge yourself with the type of weight that you are lifting. I see time and time again from people in the gym, from the people that I've coached, our coaches coaching the people that they're literally, it's like you're doing a tricep

21:04extension and it just looks like this. And like, there's no, it doesn't look like it's a challenge whatsoever. And by the end of the set, you can easily like put down the weight and, you know, not feel like your muscles are going to explode underneath your skin. That's probably a little extreme, but that's literally how my muscles feel sometimes. And that's how I know that I've literally pushed myself as much as I possibly could during that set. So if there's anything that you also take away from this podcast, I would say challenge yourself a little bit more. Okay.

21:35Now these last two, as to why you may be experiencing DOMS a little bit more and more pushing that like 72 hour threshold, you know, even if it's getting to like 48 hours of 72, more mainly the 72, like if it's, DOMS is normal to feel sore is normal. Um, but let's say these, the fourth one here is you may, your recovery plays a crucial role in your muscle repair and the growth and the way that it starts the recovery process.

22:08And if you're getting an adequate recovery, if you're getting an adequate rest, if you have poor sleep quality, if you are, if you are, I laugh because this is the biggest thing guys is nutrition. If you're giving yourself insufficient nutrition, like if you are not consistently following through with giving your body the type of fuel that it needs to start the recovery process, which is from food that impairs your muscle recovery big time. And then this leads to more intense, uh, delayed onset muscle soreness.

22:41And so if you're 72 hours in after a leg day and you're feeling like, damn, like, uh, you know, this, I'm still pretty freaking sore and I couldn't know, I could not possibly go hit another leg day. I would take a step back and I would question yourself on, have I gotten poor sleep in the last couple of days? Has, and that's, that's why I love this Oura ring. I've had this thing before. It was even freaking cool. Um, and it's, it's spot on with sleep. It's one of the most accurate, uh, sleep readers that I've ever had.

23:13And I can easily look back at my days and be like, damn, yeah, I slept poorly here. My heart rate was elevated. My temperature, my body temperature was elevated. My HRV was a little bit lower. So I definitely knew that I didn't sleep as well. Or there's been times that I too have lacked on eating consistently after a leg day. And I will tell you, like somebody that's very freaking consistent with my nutrition and I can nail it down to the point that if I have sore after 72 hours on a leg day, I can look

23:48back at my days and be like, yep, I did not eat enough as I knew that I needed to in the last couple of days. And so it's totally playing an effect into my muscle recovery. And hydration, water is so important, um, for the whole recovery process to be happening. So, and then resting somebody that kind of leads into, uh, number five, which is muscle fatigue. If, if you're accumulating fatigue from consistent training without having adequate recovery,

24:26that can lead to an increased, um, likelihood of you getting delayed onset muscle soreness. And your muscles become more and more and more vulnerable to micro damage in these situations. This is one of the reasons why I've shared with you guys on the podcast. Um, like I think it was either last year, maybe a year and a half ago now that I was experiencing serious delayed onset muscle soreness, even maybe tapping in. I've experienced rhabdo two or three times in my career.

24:56There's probably been some type of micro damage to the recovery process into my legs, um, because of, you know, just constantly hammering them and not giving them, like, it's the type of thing when, like, if you're training legs three days, three times a week and you're experiencing these things, you need to stop training them three times a week. You need to, like, really reconsider just training them once and putting them through a pretty solid workout and then focusing primarily on your recovery afterwards. Because if you are consistently training them without the adequate recovery and the rest

25:30that they need, you're just causing more damage from there on out. Your body cannot heal if you are constantly in the state of stiffness, soreness, and all the things that come with DOMS. And this is like pushing the 72-hour threshold. So just take all of these things into consideration, you guys, especially the last two. If you are somebody that trains, like, six, seven days a week and you're constantly feeling run down and sore all the time, this is, like, uh, your body's, like, alerting you to, like, consider taking more rest because if not, you're just, like I said, you're leading

26:07your body, uh, to not being able, just causing damage here and, like, and then that's, that's counterproductive to the goals that you want to accomplish, right? You want to build muscle, you want to become more toned. Well, if you're constantly training six, seven days a week and you're feeling sore all the time to run down, you're never going to get to that goal. It's going to be like you're trying to, you're bashing your head into a wall trying to get to that goal. Um, and then adequate recovery. I cannot stress enough how important recovery is, how important rest is, how important sleep is. I think I've done a podcast a while ago on, uh, sleep, but maybe it's a good time to kind

26:39of bring it back and talk about its importance again. So I think that's what I'm going to do maybe in the next episode is talk about sleep. Um, and then making sure you are giving your body the nutrition that it needs. You can't hit a big muscle group and work out super, super hard and not give your body fuel afterwards because you're just asking for yourself to just be extremely sore. Like I remember starting my journey. Maybe you guys are listening that are just starting your journey too as well. And nutrition was not my focal point.

27:10And I would go in the gym and I would go ham and I would work out so hard because that's how I knew how to do it because I used to play sports. And I was doubled over for like a week, two weeks of feeling sore that I couldn't keep a consistent training protocol. And I, because I was so sore. And then that's like one of the reasons why people fall out at the beginning of their journey because they want to go to the gym consistently, but they're not eating right to keep up with the recovery process that they get into the gym two or three times at the beginning of

27:41their journey. And then they're so freaking sore that they can't get back for two to three weeks. And then by two to three weeks, they've lost, they've lost interest in wanting to work out and getting into a healthier lifestyle. So just keep that into consideration, you guys. All right. All of these things, the first three, no matter where you're at in your journey, you are going to experience DOMS. If you're opening up new training protocols, incorporating new exercises, playing around with the facets of different facets of progressive overload, whether that be increasing weight, reps, sets, tempo work, you're going to experience some type of DOMS. But the last two, inaccurate recovery and then ongoing muscle fatigue,

28:13are some things that you would want to just pay attention to if you're experiencing because you need to incorporate the right things and right strategies in order to get the results that you want by fixing what if you're if you're feeling that by fixing the things. Okay. All right, my friends. That concludes this episode. I hope you guys added another concept to your toolbox when it comes to fitness. I appreciate y'all and I'll see you in the next one. See ya.

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