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Home > Blog > Physiotherapy Singapore & Hand Therapy > Conditions > Delayed-Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS)
Delayed-Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) is an activity or exercise-related muscle pain, which happens after:
Eccentric muscle resistance is when the muscle is resisted in extending. If you can visualize doing a bicep barbell curl, that's your biceps muscle contracting ie resistance with shortening of the muscle. Eccentric is the reverse of it, where you extend your elbow using the reverse motion of the biceps, with resistance.
Other examples of eccentric contractions are:
DOMS are a type of muscle strain, where there are micro-tears of the muscle fibers, and these micro-trauma causes an inflammatory response where you will feel the aches and pains.
In a nutshell -- exercising, competing or training too hard, too fast, too long, overstrains the muscles causing mild muscle fiber tears or disruption is what that causes DOMS.
Many patients actually like and enjoy a mild version of this, because it feels like they have "done a good workout" where the body has a little ache.
Research shows that people who are experiencing the symptoms of delayed onset muscle soreness does show biochemical markers such as creatine kinase and lactic dehydrogenase in their blood, which confirms and is consistent with muscle fiber injuries.
In moderate to severe situations, patients may experienced
The classic tell-tale sign of DOMS is the general stiffness and dull muscle ache that typically develops 1-2 days after the exercise, training or competition.
It's more often than not very localized first to the primary involved muscles and the supporting joints and muscles. Patients experience lots of muscle stiffness, ache and tenderness at the main used muscle groups.
Ironically, patients and individuals often will think they "need to stretch" but unfortunately passive stretching will only serve to worsen the DOMS symptoms.
Patients who are suffering from delayed onset muscle soreness often report short term issues of
The good news is that
We specialize in bone, muscle, joint, tendon and ligament injury diagnosis and treatment.
When we see you for the first time, we dedicate time deep dive assess and determine what is the actual diagnosis and rule out potential similar injuries such as
Going for an imaging ultrasound scan is not reliable to diagnose DOMS (because it isn't able to) but may be able to pick up more substantial injuries such as fractures or muscle tears.
We recommend that DOMS be treated first with
We dont recommend taking any painkillers or medicine for pain, but if you really want, then you can consider some of the natural anti-inflammatory supplements we have listed in our shop.
Gentle massages are also useful to accelerate healing and recovery from delayed onset muscle soreness BUUUUUUUT not within the first 24-48 hours. Doing so during this window can cause the pains and soreness to get worse.
Also avoid muscle stretching as well as aggressive sports or exercise in the first 48 hours as well. The reason is that your muscle already has micro-trauma and strained, so their ability to
can all cause higher risk of injuries and accidents.
Exercises you may consider during this time include
We have a few recommendations for our patients:
The best good news for you is that majority / most of DOMS cases gradually recovers with no long term effects, within 2 to 5 days max.
That being said...
then you must make an appointment with our physiotherapist or hand therapist to assess to find out if you have any muscle tears, ligament or tendon injury, fractures or any other injuries that need immediate physio or medical attention.