Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Goodbye DOMS?

Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) is a bodybuilder’s worst enemy. Some bodybuilders call it a “silent killer” because it takes several days after your workout to release the full extent of its damage – water retention, pain, swollen joints, restricted range of motion and more. No doubt about it: DOMS sucks!

New research aimed to investigate the effects of physical treatments on DOMS onset. Study participants were divided into three random groups: a control group, a group receiving physical treatments before working out, and a group receiving physical treatments after working out.

The researchers found that pre- and post-exercise physical therapy partially prevents and treats DOMS respectively, by reducing the effects of reactive oxygen species produced by training.

So here’s your FUSION FACTOID: DOMS sucks, and while you can’t guarantee that it will never set in after a hard workout, you can tilt the odds in your favor by going for a pre-workout massage or by massaging your sore and tired muscles afterward. Not only will this help prevent and/or relieve DOMS, but it may also break up any tight muscle fascia, thereby opening up new areas for growth.

www.fusionbodybuilding.com

Source: Xiong Y, Wu YC, Jin HZ, Gu YH. [Randomized controlled trials on the influence and mechanism of manipulation on delayed onset muscle soreness after eccentric exercise][Article in Chinese]. Zhongguo Gu Shang. 2009 Sep;22(9):669-73.

2 comments:

Kurt said...

Was there any research on if DOMS is an indicator of muscular hypertrophy?

Or does simply working out, causing the breakdown of muscles - without DOMS - be enough to start hypertrophy?

FUSION BODYBUILDING said...

I hope this helps Kurt:

This specific study did not mention anything regarding hypertrophy and DOMS. Other research, however, has shown no link between DOMS and growth. In fact, studies consistently show that DOMS impairs the hypertophy response to training. As you may know from are AGENT•M development, the inflammation cascade is enzymatically mediated, whereas hypertrophy occurs only within the context of low inflammation levels. Hence the negative correlation between hypertrophy and DOMS shown consistently in clinical research.

Let us know if we can be of any more help. Thanks for reading!