Why Am I Still Sore After Workouts? DOMS Explained

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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. DOMS doesn't ever really go away. It's something that just happens with certain aspects of what you may be doing during your training protocol. You won't experience it all of the time, but know that when you do certain things, like these first three points I'm going to talk about, you raise your likelihood of experiencing DOMS.

Yo, yo, yo. What is going on, you guys? Welcome back to The WarriorBabe Show with Nikkiey Stott, co-founder of WarriorBabe. 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, Nikkiey Stott, and welcome to today's episode, episode 147.

Once again, this is coming from when I dropped the questions box on my Instagram story, which I need to do way more often, because so many questions came from that box that I have taken and elaborated on through podcast episodes here. 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.

So here we are answering another question from that questions box, and it's specifically about DOMS, which is delayed onset muscle soreness. I'm going to talk a little bit about what that is, but what I'm really going to dive into is why you may get DOMS even after lifting for a period of time. Specifically, the question was why I get it even after lifting for a year plus. But even to this day, nine or ten years into my journey, I still experience DOMS. So there are reasons why, and I'm going to talk about five specifically.

But first, this is totally off topic, but I feel so 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 under control, and watering all of my plants, which is now literally an hour-long process because I have upwards of 15 plants. This isn't even a plug, but I should get a plug for it. They're called Easyplant. All you have to do is fill up the canister. It has an area for water on the side, and it waters itself over a month, a month and a half, I just realized. It took about a month and a half to refill these suckers, and I got them about a month and a half ago.

So they water themselves, because the thing with me was I'd get plants and kill all of them. When I moved in here I had five or a little bit more, and I have three left. I killed them all. And I really want plants because they're super cool, they help with the air and all this stuff, and they make things look pretty. But I couldn't keep them alive to save my life. I was getting ads for Easyplant, and oh my God, it's amazing. So if you love plants but you're in the same boat as me keeping them alive, go check out Easyplant, because you only have to fill them up and water them once a month, if not every six weeks.

Anyway, my whole place is clean. Two and a half hours. I even cleaned old clothes out of my closet and threw them in a bag, and now we're going to ship them off to help people who need clothes. I dusted everything, I cleaned everything, I put away things that were just out, and the clothes are away. Can you guys feel me on that? We all have those times where you're just locked in on cleaning, and the outcome just feels so good.

Okay, back to the episode. What we're going to talk about today is delayed onset muscle soreness, known as DOMS, and why you may be experiencing it. It's totally normal anywhere throughout your entire journey. But what I gathered from that question was that someone is experiencing it more often than not, after lifting for a year plus.

Typically, when you work out, you may experience DOMS within 12 to 24 hours after the workout, and it can last up to 72 hours. If you don't know exactly what it feels like, it's soreness, it's stiffness, it's reduced muscle strength and function. Let's say you did legs, and then 24 to 48 hours later you have that muscle soreness, the DOMS. But it's not going away for upwards of 72 hours or more. This is where we're going to dive into what I'm talking about here, which may answer some of your questions, because it really should be going away.

If you're about to 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 reduced. You're going to feel sore. You're going to feel stiff. That's an extreme case, and we may even be touching on rhabdo at that point, but I'm not going to dive into that topic today. I just want to keep this centered on DOMS.

So here are some reasons, five specifically, that I want to dive into. The last two are the ones you really want to pay attention to, so make sure you stay with me all the way through all five. All five are really important to know and will add to your arsenal, your toolbox of lifting knowledge and concepts.

There are several reasons why you would still be experiencing DOMS even after lifting for more than one year. Like I said at the beginning, I still experience this nine to ten years into my journey. So there's nothing wrong with it. It's good to just understand why it's happening and know it's not alarming, unless maybe you're still feeling the soreness after 72 hours. And just for insight, especially for legs, that's when it's really hard to walk around. You're waddling around, looking like a penguin. It's sore to touch. The muscles are consistently contracted. That's something you would want to worry about.

But with DOMS, this is just to shed light on exactly what it is and why you may be experiencing it, especially since you will experience it throughout many years of your journey. Regardless, 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 four, year six, year eight, year 10, year 15. DOMS doesn't ever really go away. It's something that just happens with certain aspects of what you may be doing during your training protocol.

You may not experience it all the time, by the way. I should probably pin that in there. It's not that every time you work out you're going to be wrecked. I worked out yesterday and I'm feeling sore, but it's a good sore. You won't experience it all of the time, but know that when you do certain things, like these first three points I'm going to talk about, you will raise your likelihood of experiencing DOMS. And throughout a training block or program you're in, you may notice that by the last couple of weeks, or the last two weeks, or the last week, you're not really experiencing that much DOMS. And here's why.

The first one is introducing new exercises or routines. You're introducing new exercises, or you're changing your workout routine so it targets different muscles, or engages muscles in different ways, that were previously less active. That can lead to you experiencing more DOMS. For example, maybe you're starting a new program. I like to call them blocks. You're done with the last month's or last six months' programming, and you're opening up a new one. Maybe you're incorporating new isolation exercises that you weren't including in the last program. Just by bringing in different ways to target or engage muscles that weren't as active in the last one, you're making them more active in this new program.

You're going to experience some type of soreness, because your muscles are like, "Hey, I haven't been paid attention to in the last six weeks. Now I'm here again, and I'm getting attention through X, Y and Z." That's a high-level explanation of why you experience a little bit of soreness. Or let's say you change your workout routine from a split to full body, or from full body to a push-pull. Either way, at a high level, the first reason you will experience DOMS, no matter what stage of your journey you're in, is when you're introducing new exercises and opening up a new routine to follow.

You can't target every single muscle in your body in one routine. Some muscles will get less attention than others. Then when you open a new training protocol, maybe you put some to rest and bring new attention to the muscles you weren't making as active in the last program. You know what I'm saying? I'm trying to say it in a couple of different ways so that it lands for you listeners.

So that's the first one. Again, these first three are going to be more of the reasons why you will experience it regardless of where you are in your journey, whether you're in year one, year four, year five or year eight. Every time you switch to a new training protocol, you're going to experience some type of delayed onset muscle soreness.

The second one is upping the intensity of your workouts, whether that's increasing the weights, changing the number of repetitions, in other words the different facets of progressive overload, or reducing rest periods between sets. This can all lead to soreness as your muscles adapt to this new type of stress.

It kind of pairs with the first one. You're opening up a new training block, and maybe in this block you're doing the same exercises, but you're playing around with a progressive overload strategy. Instead of doing the same weight I was doing with squats, I'm going to increase my weight this next block. Or I'm going to change the repetitions: more weight and fewer reps, or less weight and higher reps. Or I'm going from a 90-second rest period to 60 seconds. Whatever you're doing, you're going to experience some type of delayed onset muscle soreness because your muscles are trying to adapt to the new stress you're putting on them by increasing the intensity of your programming.

Same situation with an isolation exercise. Say you're doing a rear delt fly. Using the same squat example, you're increasing your weight from the last block, or increasing your weight and lowering your repetitions, or lowering your weight and increasing your repetitions, or reducing your rest period from 60 seconds to 45 seconds, because it's an isolation exercise. I would always take less rest with isolation exercises, because they're small muscle groups and they can get hammered pretty good.

But you get what I'm saying. I'm trying to use a bunch of different examples to paint the picture so it clicks for you. So the first one was new exercises and new routines. The second one was increasing the intensity and changing certain facets of progressive overload that make your muscles adapt to new stress.

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The third one is eccentric movements. These are exercises where you're lengthening the muscle under tension, for example the downward motion of a squat or the lowering phase of a bicep curl.

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Eccentric movements are particularly known to increase the likelihood of delayed onset muscle soreness. Even if you're an experienced lifter, you can experience soreness from these specific movements. Regardless of where you are in your journey, like I keep saying, you're likely going to experience this type of delayed onset muscle soreness.

Getting back to that third point: when you're in that lowering phase, you're putting a little more time under tension than maybe you did in previous blocks. Maybe it's an emphasis. I love to put negatives or tempo work into my routines. If I'm putting an emphasis on that, and I didn't in the previous block, then I'm likely going to experience delayed onset muscle soreness, because I'm slowing down the movement, putting more time under tension, and causing more stress to that specific muscle than I have been.

So no matter what, as you play around with your programming, add exercises, change up your routines and do different things, you'll get sore. This third one is a different aspect of progressive overload. It's you doing either negatives or time under tension, which ties back to the second one. But regardless, like I said at the beginning, no matter where you are in your journey, you're going to experience it with these three if you're doing this the right way.

That means changing up your workout routines, and listen to me loud and clear, every four to six to eight weeks. Not every single week. If you're changing your workouts and exercises every single week, you're not giving your muscles and your body time to adapt to the stress you want them to. You're constantly changing things up, and your muscles are like, "What the heck are you doing? I'm trying to get stronger and be more adaptive to these routines." You're not giving your muscles the time or the consistency they need to get that outcome.

I love it, I hear it all the time: "I'm bored. I want new exercises." There's a method to the madness. If you want to get stronger, you have to consistently do the same exercises for a set amount of time, like four to six to eight weeks. If you understand that concept, I'd love to push you to six to eight weeks. Some of you are like, "Nah, I need to change up my exercises after every four because I get bored." That's totally fine, but you have to at least do the same things for a minimum of four weeks.

So no matter where you are, from being a new beginner to being six months in, one year in, two years in or 10 years in, by changing these plans, introducing new exercises and playing with progressive overload, you will experience DOMS. And circling back to what I said at the beginning, with new workout routines and new blocks, you will feel the DOMS in maybe the first two to three weeks.

I also want to highlight that soreness is not an indicator of a good or bad workout. Just push yourself and challenge yourself. The last few reps of a set should be challenging. That is what makes an effective workout.

As you get to the last week or last two weeks, you may not be feeling as sore as you were at the beginning of the training block, because your muscles have adapted. They've become used to the type of stress you're putting them under. That's why we 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. That's how you get stronger, and that's how you build more muscle.

So those three: new routines and new programming, where you'll feel soreness within 12 to 24 hours from new exercises that work muscles that were previously less active. Then increasing the intensity, whether that's changing your weights, your repetitions or your rest periods. And the third, increasing time under tension with tempo work or negatives. You will experience DOMS no matter what. You will have some type of soreness.

Some of you may be asking, "What if I don't get that soreness?" Without seeing and working with you directly, I'd say that probably 90% of the time you're just going through the motions, and you really need to challenge yourself with the weight you're lifting. I see it time and time again, from people in the gym, from people I've coached, and from people our coaches are coaching. You're doing a tricep extension, and it doesn't look like a challenge whatsoever. By the end of the set, you can easily put down the weight without feeling 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 I've pushed myself as much as I possibly could during that set. So if there's anything you take away from this podcast, challenge yourself a little bit more.

Now, these last two explain why you may be experiencing DOMS more and more and pushing that 72-hour threshold. Even if it's getting to 48 hours, but mainly 72. DOMS is normal. Feeling sore is normal.

The fourth one is recovery. Recovery plays a crucial role in muscle repair and growth and in how the recovery process starts. Are you getting adequate recovery? Are you getting adequate rest? Do you have poor sleep quality? And I laugh because this is the biggest thing, guys: nutrition. If you're giving yourself insufficient nutrition, if you're not consistently giving your body the fuel from food that it needs to start the recovery process, that impairs your muscle recovery big time. And that leads to more intense delayed onset muscle soreness.

So if you're 72 hours out from a leg day and you're thinking, "Damn, I'm still pretty sore and I could not possibly hit another leg day," I would take a step back and ask yourself, "Have I gotten poor sleep in the last couple of days?" That's why I love this Oura ring. I've had it before, and it's spot on with sleep. It's one of the most accurate sleep trackers I've ever had. I can easily look back at my days and say, "Yeah, I slept poorly here. My heart rate was elevated. My body temperature was elevated. My HRV was a little lower." So I definitely know I didn't sleep as well.

There have also been times when I've slacked on eating consistently after a leg day. I'm somebody who is very consistent with my nutrition, and I can nail it down to the point that if I'm sore 72 hours after a leg day, I can look back at my days and say, "Yep, I did not eat as much as I knew I needed to in the last couple of days." So it's totally having an effect on my muscle recovery. And hydration: water is so important for the whole recovery process.

And then rest, which leads into number five: muscle fatigue. If you're accumulating fatigue from consistent training without adequate recovery, that can increase the likelihood of delayed onset muscle soreness, and your muscles become more and more vulnerable to micro damage in these situations.

This is one of the reasons I shared with you guys on the podcast, I think about a year or a year and a half ago now, that I was experiencing serious delayed onset muscle soreness, maybe even tipping into rhabdo. I've experienced rhabdo two or three times in my career. There's probably been some micro damage to the recovery process in my legs from constantly hammering them and not giving them the recovery they need.

If you're training legs three times a week and experiencing these things, you need to stop training them three times a week. Really consider training them once, putting them through a pretty solid workout, and then focusing primarily on your recovery afterward. Because if you're consistently training them without the recovery and rest they need, you're just causing more damage from there on out. Your body cannot heal if you're constantly in a state of stiffness, soreness and all the things that come with DOMS, pushing that 72-hour threshold.

So take all of these things into consideration, especially the last two. If you train six or seven days a week and you're constantly feeling run down and sore, your body is alerting you to consider taking more rest. If not, like I said, you're just causing damage, and that's counterproductive to the goals you want to accomplish. You want to build muscle. You want to become more toned. If you're training six or seven days a week and feeling sore and run down all the time, you're never going to get to that goal. It's like bashing your head into a wall trying to get there.

I cannot stress enough how important recovery is, how important rest is, how important sleep is. I did a podcast a while ago on sleep, but maybe it's a good time to bring it back and talk about its importance again. I think that's what I'm going to do in the next episode: talk about sleep.

And make sure you're giving your body the nutrition it needs. You can't hit a big muscle group, work out super hard, and not give your body fuel afterward, because you're just asking to be extremely sore. I remember starting my journey, and maybe some of you listening are just starting yours too, and nutrition was not my focal point. I would go into the gym and go ham and work out so hard, because that's how I knew how to do it from playing sports. And I was doubled over for a week or two feeling so sore that I couldn't keep a consistent training protocol.

That's one of the reasons people fall off at the beginning of their journey. They want to go to the gym consistently, but they're not eating right to keep up with the recovery process. They get into the gym two or three times at the beginning, and then they're so sore they can't get back for two to three weeks. And by then, they've lost interest in working out and getting into a healthier lifestyle. So keep that in consideration, you guys.

All right. With the first three, no matter where you are in your journey, you are going to experience DOMS: opening up new training protocols, incorporating new exercises, and playing around with the different facets of progressive overload, whether that's increasing weight, reps, sets or tempo work. But the last two, inadequate recovery and ongoing muscle fatigue, are things you want to pay attention to if you're experiencing them, because you need to put the right strategies in place and fix those things in order to get the results you want.

All right, my friends, that concludes this episode. I hope you 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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