Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness
Surprise: It’s Not Lactic Acid
Sore muscles after a strenuous workout have become a badge of honor from bodybuilders to yoga instructors, but how long should it last? Some sports enthusiasts believe that the “burn” someone feels while finishing a last rep is caused by lactic acid, which later causes soreness. The lactic acid connection is still repeated today across the nation, so much so that Sports Illustrated called upon Dr. Michael Joyner of the Mayo Clinic to help debunk the myth. Dr. Joyner writes that soreness caused by “fatigue is multi-dimensional and caused by a number of factors. Believe it or not, lactic acid is probably not causing the ‘burn’ associated with intense exercise.”¹
Joyner and Sports Illustrated referenced the Schwane Study conducted in 1983 where athletes were forced to run downhill on a treadmill to induce muscle soreness and were later compared with runners who ran on treadmills that were level. The downhill runners were significantly sore; however, lactic acid levels were not elevated, concluding that
Lactic acid was never elevated in downhill runners, but subjects experienced significant delayed-onset soreness. Results indicated that lactic acid is not related to exercise-induced delayed-onset muscle soreness. ²
Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) is a result of microscopic tears in the muscle tissue due to strenuous exercise. In simple terms the soreness experienced the following days is due to inflammation of the tissues.³ As highlighted in the July 2019 issue of Shape magazine there's great danger in not allowing ample time for your muscles to rest, explains Leesa Galatz, M.D., chair of the orthopedic department at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Galatz warned that a tired muscle that is not given enough time to rest can result in excessive tissue damage.⁴
Harvard Medical School agrees: Exercising with sore muscles can lead to greater injury. Even a mild strain (Grade I) can take 3 to 4 weeks to heal, where a swollen or bruised strain (Grade II) can take months away from an athlete.⁵
Cryotherapy and DOMS
Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness can be significantly lessened by cryotherapy, and that in a single visit.⁶ Whole Body Cryotherapy is a 3-minute session that uses below freezing air to safely chill your body from the shoulders down. This process also constricts the skin and muscle tissues, forcing blood away from the outer tissues and inward to the body’s warm core. In the core the blood is reoxygenated and filtered from toxins and inflammatory properties. After the 3-minute cryosauna session the enriched blood returns to peripheral tissues and begins to vitalize the body with enriched oxygen, nutrients, and enzymes. Once the cryotherapy session is over and the body begins to return to normal skin temperatures the warm blood is rushed back to the surface enriched with oxygen and nutrients to reduce inflammation and initiate healing.
The College of Physical Education in Brazil published a peer-reviewed study showing that a single session of cryotherapy enhanced recovery from muscle damage by 24 hours. In the Brazilian study 26 young men completed 100 drop jumps to induce muscle soreness. Half of the athletes were treated with a single 3 minute cryotherapy session after the exercise. They healed from their soreness in 3 days. Those who did not experience cryotherapy complained of soreness over 4 days.⁷
Injury prevention with cryotherapy can significantly reduce your risk of injury with regular cryo sessions. Ultra athletes, marathon runners, and Olympians all have incorporated cryosaunas into their recovery routines to prevent injury and return to strenuous training faster.
Learn more about the benefits of cryotherapy, find out how you can provide cryotherapy services, and read the guide on the cryotherapy business.
Founded on facts: for peer-reviewed articles, scholarly journals, and articles cited above please see the below sources.
https://www.si.com/edge/2016/07/21/debunking-myths-lactic-acid-truth-fatigue-recovery-muscle-soreness
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27409551
Armstrong, RB (August 1990). "Initial events in exercise-induced muscular injury". Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 22 (4): 429–35.
https://www.shape.com/fitness/training-plans/are-sore-muscles-sign-good-workout
https://www.health.harvard.edu/a_to_z/muscle-strain-a-to-z
https://doi.org/10.1111/sms.12353
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/sms.12353