If you have ever finished a hard leg workout feeling completely fine, only to wake up the next morning struggling to walk down the stairs, you have probably experienced delayed onset muscle soreness, better known as DOMS.
That familiar stiffness after squats, lunges, deadlifts, hill sprints, or a new training routine can make even simple movements uncomfortable. Sometimes the soreness is mild and disappears within a couple of days. Other times, it can make sitting down, getting out of bed, or lifting your arms surprisingly difficult.
The good news is that DOMS is usually temporary. It is a normal response to unfamiliar or demanding exercise, particularly activities that involve a lot of eccentric muscle contractions. With the right approach, you can make the recovery period more comfortable and get back to training without constantly feeling beaten up.
In this article, we will look at what actually causes DOMS, how long it normally lasts, what you can do to manage the soreness, and which recovery strategies are actually worth your time.
What Is DOMS?
DOMS stands for Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. Unlike the discomfort you may feel during a difficult exercise, DOMS usually does not appear immediately after your workout.
Instead, the soreness tends to develop several hours after exercise and becomes more noticeable during the following day or two. Research on exercise-induced muscle damage shows that soreness commonly peaks somewhere around 24 to 72 hours after unfamiliar or strenuous exercise, although the exact timing can vary from person to person.
This is why you might finish a workout on Monday evening thinking everything went perfectly, only to discover on Tuesday morning that your legs have a very different opinion.
Typical symptoms of DOMS include:
- Muscle tenderness
- Stiffness
- A dull or aching sensation
- Temporary reduction in strength
- Reduced range of motion
- Discomfort when stretching or contracting the affected muscle
- Occasional mild swelling
DOMS is particularly common after exercise that your body is not accustomed to, especially when the workout involves a large amount of eccentric loading.
Why Does DOMS Happen After Exercise?
For years, people often blamed lactic acid for muscle soreness. You may have heard that “lactic acid builds up in your muscles” and causes you to feel sore the next day.
That explanation is far too simplistic.
DOMS is not simply caused by lactic acid sitting in your muscles overnight. The current understanding is much more complicated and involves mechanical stress, changes within muscle tissue, connective tissue, inflammatory processes, and the sensitisation of pain receptors.
One of the biggest contributors is eccentric exercise.
An eccentric contraction happens when a muscle is producing force while it is lengthening. Think about lowering a barbell during a biceps curl, lowering yourself during a squat, walking or running downhill, or controlling the weight during the lowering phase of a bench press.
These movements can place considerable mechanical tension on muscles, particularly when the exercise is new or performed at a higher intensity than your body is used to.
Research into eccentric exercise has found that unfamiliar eccentric loading can lead to temporary changes in muscle function, stiffness, swelling and soreness.
Fortunately, your body adapts.
After you become accustomed to a particular training movement, the same workout generally produces less soreness and muscle disruption. This is sometimes referred to as the repeated-bout effect. In simple terms, your muscles become better prepared for a similar challenge in the future.
Is DOMS a Sign That You Had a Good Workout?
This is one of the biggest misconceptions in fitness.
Being extremely sore does not automatically mean that your workout was better.
You can have a productive strength or hypertrophy workout and experience very little soreness. On the other hand, you can introduce a new exercise, perform a lot of unfamiliar eccentric work, and become incredibly sore without necessarily having a better muscle-building stimulus.
Soreness is simply one response to exercise stress. It should not be treated as a scorecard for workout quality.
If your goal is building muscle, getting stronger, improving fitness, or becoming a better athlete, long-term consistency matters far more than trying to make yourself sore after every session.
How Long Does DOMS Usually Last?
For most people, DOMS gradually improves over several days.
The soreness may begin roughly 12 to 24 hours after training, become more noticeable during the next one or two days, and then gradually fade. Research reviews commonly describe DOMS as peaking between approximately 24 and 72 hours and resolving within several days.
However, there is no universal timeline.
A beginner performing their first serious leg workout may feel uncomfortable for several days. An experienced lifter who is accustomed to squatting regularly may recover much faster from a similar session.
Your training history, workout volume, exercise selection, intensity, sleep, nutrition and individual recovery capacity can all influence how you feel after training.
1. Keep Moving Instead of Becoming Completely Inactive
When your muscles are sore, your first instinct might be to lie on the sofa and avoid movement altogether.
Rest is important, but complete inactivity is not always the most comfortable option.
Gentle movement can help you stay mobile while your body goes through the recovery process. A relaxed walk, easy cycling session, light swimming, or a few minutes of gentle movement may be enough.
The key word here is easy.
You are not trying to set a personal record while your muscles are sore. The goal is simply to get some movement without adding another significant training stress.
Research examining post-exercise recovery strategies suggests that active recovery can help reduce the perception of DOMS in some situations, although the effect is not necessarily dramatic.
For example, if your legs are sore after a heavy squat session, a relaxed 15–30 minute walk may be a better choice than another intense leg workout.
2. Give the Sore Muscle Time to Recover
This sounds obvious, but it is one of the most common mistakes people make.
When people are motivated to build muscle or improve their performance, they sometimes assume that training harder and more frequently will always produce better results.
It doesn’t work that way.
Your body needs time to recover from training. If a muscle is extremely sore and its strength and range of motion are clearly reduced, repeatedly hammering that same muscle with another hard workout may not be the smartest approach.
You do not necessarily need to stop exercising completely. Instead, consider training a different muscle group, reducing the intensity, or performing an easier session while the sore area recovers.
Think about training as a cycle:
Stress → Recovery → Adaptation.
The workout provides the stimulus. Recovery gives your body the opportunity to adapt to it.
3. Get Enough Protein
Nutrition cannot magically eliminate DOMS, but adequate nutrition is important for recovery and maintaining muscle tissue.
Protein is particularly important because your muscles rely on amino acids to support the repair and remodelling processes that take place after training.
Good protein sources include:
- Eggs
- Chicken
- Fish
- Lean beef
- Greek yoghurt
- Cottage cheese
- Milk
- Beans and lentils
- Tofu and other soy products
- Protein supplements when convenient
You do not need to obsess over drinking a protein shake within a few minutes of finishing your workout. Your overall daily protein intake and consistent nutrition matter much more than trying to hit an extremely narrow post-workout window.
If you are serious about training, it also makes sense to look at your overall diet rather than searching for one supplement or food that supposedly “fixes” muscle soreness.
For more fitness and bodybuilding information, you can also explore the training and supplementation resources available at Muscle Supplement Ireland.
4. Don’t Forget Carbohydrates
Protein tends to get most of the attention in bodybuilding circles, but carbohydrates also have an important role in training recovery.
Hard training can use a significant amount of stored muscle glycogen. Eating enough carbohydrate helps replenish those stores, particularly if you train frequently or perform high-volume workouts.
Useful carbohydrate sources include:
- Rice
- Potatoes
- Oats
- Whole-grain bread
- Pasta
- Fruit
- Beans
You do not need to avoid carbohydrates because you are trying to stay lean. Your ideal intake depends on your overall calorie needs, training volume, body composition goals and personal preferences.
5. Drink Enough Water
Hydration is another simple part of recovery that is easy to overlook.
Being dehydrated is not the primary cause of DOMS, so drinking huge amounts of water will not suddenly make muscle soreness disappear. However, maintaining normal hydration supports many of the processes involved in exercise and recovery.
Instead of forcing down excessive amounts of water, pay attention to your thirst, activity level, environmental conditions and sweat losses.
If you have completed a long, sweaty training session, you may also need to replace electrolytes through food or an appropriate sports drink, particularly in hot conditions.
6. Prioritise Sleep
If you are training hard but regularly sleeping five hours a night, recovery is likely to become more difficult.
Sleep is one of the least exciting recovery strategies, but it is also one of the easiest to underestimate.
Rather than searching for a complicated recovery hack, start by building a consistent sleep routine. Try to go to bed and wake up at roughly similar times, keep your bedroom comfortable, and reduce unnecessary distractions before bedtime.
The exact amount of sleep an individual needs varies, but most adults should aim for roughly seven to nine hours per night.
Think of sleep as part of your training programme rather than something that happens separately from it.
7. Try Gentle Massage
Massage is another popular recovery strategy for people dealing with post-workout soreness.
It does not need to be an aggressive deep-tissue session. Even relatively gentle massage or self-massage with a foam roller may feel useful when muscles are tight and uncomfortable.
A systematic review and meta-analysis examining different post-exercise recovery techniques found that massage was among the more effective approaches for reducing perceived DOMS and fatigue, although recovery methods vary considerably in effectiveness.
That does not mean massage repairs your muscles instantly. Rather, it may help reduce the perception of soreness and make movement feel more comfortable while your body naturally recovers.
8. What About Stretching?
Stretching is often recommended as a cure for DOMS.
The reality is more nuanced.
Gentle stretching can feel good when you are stiff, but stretching is not a magic way to prevent or eliminate DOMS.
If you decide to stretch sore muscles, keep it comfortable. Avoid forcing a painful muscle into an extreme range of motion simply because you think it will speed up recovery.
A few gentle stretches can be useful as part of your normal mobility routine, but you do not need to spend 30 minutes aggressively stretching every muscle that feels sore.
9. Heat or a Warm Shower May Help You Feel Better
A warm shower, bath, sauna or other form of heat exposure can be relaxing when your muscles feel stiff.
Research into local heat therapy after exercise-induced muscle damage suggests that heat may influence symptoms and aspects of recovery, although results depend on the specific protocol and type of exercise.
In practical terms, you do not need to overcomplicate this.
If a warm shower makes your muscles feel more comfortable and helps you relax, there is nothing wrong with including it in your recovery routine.
10. Don’t Expect Supplements to Do All the Work
The supplement industry has no shortage of products marketed as recovery solutions.
Some ingredients have been investigated for their potential effects on muscle soreness, inflammation or recovery. However, the evidence is often mixed, and a supplement should not replace the basics.
Before worrying about specialised recovery products, make sure you have covered the fundamentals:
- Enough calories for your goal
- Adequate protein
- Enough carbohydrates to support your training
- Good hydration
- Quality sleep
- Appropriate training volume
- Rest days when needed
There is also an important distinction between reducing soreness and improving long-term adaptation.
Some forms of inflammation and muscle stress are part of the body’s normal response to training. Trying to eliminate every sign of exercise-related inflammation is not necessarily the goal.
Recent research continues to highlight that the relationship between exercise-induced muscle damage, soreness and long-term adaptation is more complicated than simply “more inflammation equals worse recovery.”
11. Reduce Training Volume When DOMS Is Severe
There is a difference between being slightly sore and being unable to move normally.
If you are mildly sore but otherwise feel good, you may be able to train normally or make a small adjustment to your workout.
If you are extremely sore, your strength has dropped significantly, or your normal movement pattern has changed because of the discomfort, reducing training volume or intensity may be the better option.
For example, suppose you normally perform five sets of heavy squats. If your legs are still heavily fatigued from the previous session, you might reduce the number of sets, use a lighter load, or focus on another training area.
Good programming is not about proving how tough you are every time you enter the gym.
It is about being able to train consistently for months and years.
12. Build Up Gradually When Starting a New Workout
One of the best ways to reduce severe DOMS in the future is to avoid doing too much too soon.
This is especially important when introducing a new exercise.
Imagine you normally train your legs twice a week, but then decide to add Bulgarian split squats, walking lunges and high-volume Romanian deadlifts all in the same session.
Your muscles may have no idea what just happened.
A better approach is to introduce unfamiliar exercises gradually. Start with manageable volume, see how your body responds, and increase the workload over subsequent sessions.
This gradual progression is particularly useful with eccentric exercises, which can produce substantial soreness when introduced suddenly. Research has shown that repeated exposure to eccentric exercise can lead to an adaptive response and reduced soreness from subsequent similar exercise.
13. Don’t Confuse DOMS With an Injury
This is probably the most important point in the entire article.
Not every type of post-workout pain is DOMS.
Typical DOMS tends to develop gradually after exercise and affects the muscles that were trained. It often feels like a dull ache, tenderness or stiffness and usually improves with time.
An injury can behave very differently.
Be more cautious if you experience:
- Sharp or stabbing pain
- Sudden pain during an exercise
- Severe swelling
- Significant bruising
- Joint pain rather than muscle soreness
- Loss of function that is getting worse
- Pain that does not gradually improve
- Unusual weakness or numbness
Very dark urine, severe muscle swelling or extreme weakness after intense exercise can also be signs of a potentially serious condition such as rhabdomyolysis and require prompt medical attention.
If you are unsure whether what you are experiencing is ordinary DOMS or an actual injury, it is better to get advice from a qualified healthcare professional rather than simply training through it.
What Is the Best Way to Recover From DOMS?
There is no single recovery trick that works for everyone.
For most people, the most sensible approach is a combination of basic strategies:
- Keep moving gently. Avoid complete inactivity if light movement feels comfortable.
- Eat enough protein. Give your body the nutrients it needs to support muscle repair.
- Eat enough carbohydrates. Especially if you train frequently or perform high-volume workouts.
- Stay hydrated. Replace fluids lost through normal activity and sweating.
- Get enough sleep. Recovery does not stop when you leave the gym.
- Use massage if it helps. It may reduce the perception of soreness and improve comfort.
- Consider gentle heat. A warm shower or bath may help you feel less stiff.
- Adjust your training. Reduce volume or intensity if soreness is interfering with movement or performance.
- Progress gradually. Avoid sudden jumps in training volume or unfamiliar exercises.
Evidence from research on recovery techniques suggests that several approaches can provide some relief from DOMS, but their effects vary and none should be considered a replacement for sensible training and recovery habits.
Should You Train When You Have DOMS?
Sometimes yes.
Sometimes no.
It depends on how severe the soreness is and what you are planning to train.
If your chest is slightly sore after Monday’s workout, for example, you may still be perfectly capable of training your legs on Tuesday.
But if your legs are so sore that you cannot perform a normal bodyweight squat with good technique, another heavy leg session probably isn’t a great idea.
The goal isn’t to avoid every sensation of soreness. The goal is to manage your training intelligently.
Experienced lifters often learn to distinguish between normal training discomfort and something that feels genuinely wrong. That skill becomes increasingly valuable as training intensity and volume increase.
Can You Prevent DOMS Completely?
Probably not.
If you exercise, especially if you regularly challenge your muscles with new movements and increasing workloads, occasional soreness is likely to happen.
However, you can reduce how severe it becomes.
The most practical strategy is progressive training. Instead of jumping from a small amount of exercise to a huge amount overnight, increase training demands gradually.
Your body is remarkably adaptable. The first time you perform a new movement, you may experience considerable soreness. After several weeks of consistent exposure, the same exercise may barely bother you.
This adaptation is one of the reasons consistency is so important in resistance training.
The Bottom Line
DOMS is an uncomfortable but usually temporary consequence of challenging your muscles, particularly when you perform unfamiliar or eccentric exercise.
It normally develops after the workout rather than during it and tends to be most noticeable during the following one to three days.
The best way to deal with it is not to search for a miracle recovery hack. Instead, focus on the basics that support recovery: sensible training progression, adequate food, enough protein, hydration, sleep and appropriate rest.
Gentle movement, massage and heat may also make the recovery period more comfortable, although individual responses vary.
Most importantly, remember that soreness is not a measurement of how effective your workout was. You don’t need to be unable to walk after every leg session to build muscle or become stronger.
A good training programme should challenge you without constantly leaving you unable to function normally for the next few days.
Train hard when appropriate. Recover properly. Then come back and do it again.
Scientific References
- Hody, S., Croisier, J. L., Bury, T., Rogister, B., & Leprince, P. (2019). Eccentric Muscle Contractions: Risks and Benefits. Frontiers in Physiology.
- Proske, U., & Morgan, D. L. (2001). Muscle damage from eccentric exercise: mechanism, mechanical signs, adaptation and clinical applications. The Journal of Physiology.
- Wackerhage, H. (2003). Recovering from eccentric exercise: get weak to become strong. The Journal of Physiology.
- Dupuy, O., Douzi, W., Theurot, D., Bosquet, L., & Dugué, B. (2018). An Evidence-Based Approach for Choosing Post-exercise Recovery Techniques to Reduce Markers of Muscle Damage, Soreness, Fatigue, and Inflammation. Frontiers in Physiology.
- Weerapong, P., Hume, P. A., & Kolt, G. S. Research on massage and post-exercise recovery has also contributed to the broader evidence base regarding management of exercise-related soreness.
- Recent systematic and umbrella reviews continue to evaluate physical therapies and other non-pharmacological strategies for DOMS, with results varying considerably between interventions.
