OH decided that we should start doing some home workouts and she had a set of excercises from a magazine that she wanted to work through. I was all for this as I know I have many areas that need work. It was mostly core stuff but the routine finished with split squats. 3 x sets of 12 reps on each leg. This was on monday night and ever since then my front inner thighs have been painful. It hurts to walk down stairs and the muscles are tender to the touch. Now I am well aware that this means I need to build those muscles but how soon should I be repeating the excercise? Should I wait until they stop hurting or just man up and get on with it?

The next day will be fine, or have a day off. In my experience DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) gets worse if you leave it longer than that. It’s ok to train hard 3 days on 1 day off if you want. It’s just your body not being used to those movements.

Keep doing them daily and you’ll get better and less sore as the week goes on.

I’d be tempted to leave it a few days before trying the same exercise routine again. Do however exercise the next day (And the day after that) but only lightly, this should help the muscle recover as I understand it. Zone 1 cycling, walking and swimming are excellent for recovery imho.

I have known to suffer doms where I struggled to walk. They always ease off though and it does get better each passing week of training as long as you don’t take a couple of weeks off then start again. 😓

didnthurt

I’d be tempted to leave it a few days before trying the same exercise routine again. Do however exercise the next day (And the day after that) but only lightly, this should help the muscle recover as I understand it. Zone 1 cycling, walking and swimming are excellent for recovery imho.

Yeah, I’m inclined to wait until the pain eases to be honest. But, I did go river swimming the following night and I did around 16 miles off road yesterday on my day off. As a postie I do light exercise every day.

If I’ve trained heavy on a muscle group, it generally takes 3 or 4 days for the DOMS to go. I base my training around split rotations.

colp
Full Member

If I’ve trained heavy on a muscle group, it generally takes 3 or 4 days for the DOMS to go. I base my training around split rotations

Sounds about right. Got up this morning pain free 🙂

Motion is Lotion with DOMS IMO, the sooner you get moving the better

I get DOMS after a break of a week or more. As long as I exercise more regularly than that I don’t suffer from them.

Until this thread I hadn’t heard of DOMS and I don’t really understand the cause. I have experienced the pain in the same muscles before, usually after a big mountain descent on foot. I am imagining it to be caused by muscle strain so my inclination is to wait until the pain subsides before repeating the same exercise but is it something else? Lactic acid maybe?

From memory the cause of DOMS was a bit contentious, something to do with lactic acid. Where I think it’s pretty much agreed that essentially its purely muscle damage and the inflammation that is caused from it.

Don’t be tempted to use antiinflammatories unless you have to do a physical activity soon after (something like a multi-day ride/event). As the inflammation is actually now thought to be a good thing as it allows your body to repair the muscle damage better. Same with pain relief, as pain is a good indicator that you should be resting. Obviously if you need pain relief to sleep then take it.