I’M Sore! Expert Advice: Time Heals All Bloomies

Yesterday, you pushed yourself.

Bloomsday only happens once a year, right?

So you kicked out your strides, pumped those arms and ran your best time ever.

Today, it feels like someone pounded your legs with a meat tenderizer. And tomorrow may be worse.

Pain, stiffness, fatigue. The technical term for day-after muscle aches is DOMS - Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. Anyone can get it, from couch potatoes to star athletes.

“Oh, I’ll be pretty sore tomorrow,” said Chris Morlan, a world-class marathoner and Lewis and Clark High School track coach. He ran the race in 38 minutes, 57 seconds this year, then ran the 7.4-mile course again to meet his quota of weekly training miles.

It doesn’t really matter how much you train, said Danny Pincizero, a physical therapy professor at Eastern Washington University. If you do too much, you’re gonna feel it in the morning.

“You could walk Bloomsday, or have run it for time, and still experience DOMS,” he said. “It’s going to happen any time you ask the body to do something it is not accustomed to doing.”

The current theory - and several have been floated over the years - is that DOMS is a result of microscopic tears in muscle cells.

Muscles are made of millions of muscle cells that can contract to create force or relax to resume their normal length. When you step forward, for instance, cells in your thigh muscle contract as you extend your leg. Meanwhile, your hamstrings relax and lengthen to accommodate the step.

Resistance - body weight, in the case of running - forces each cell to lengthen while it is struggling to contract. When the resistance is greater than the cell can overcome, the cell rips.

Torn cells release proteins and chemicals into the surrounding tissue. Swelling, a symptom of DOMS, is the result of the body rushing plasma, white blood cells and chemicals to the area as part of the natural healing process.

Soreness typically starts a day after the activity, and peaks two to three days after. Usually, it goes away in a week. Researchers still aren’t sure why the soreness is delayed, Pincizero said.

Neither are they sure what to do about it. In clinical studies, researchers gave DOMS sufferers various “remedies,” including hot packs, cold packs, electrical stimulation, massage, aspirin, Ibuprofin, pure oxygen and even magnets. None worked consistently to reduce discomfort.

It seems like the old adage to “walk it off” is the best medicine.

Morlan recommends light walking or running to keep the blood flowing through the muscle. Stretching in place the day after is good, as is walking or jogging on a soft surface, such as grass, with exaggerated steps to stretch the muscle while it’s in motion.

Pincizero said that light exercise helps, but “time is the healer here.”

Also important, Morlan said, is to drink plenty of water and eat a healthy diet. “The best strategy, though, is prevention,” he said. “The key is to listen to your body, and not overdo it.”

Graphic: Why does it hurt so bad the day after Bloomsday?