Why muscle pain

Taking up a new exercise, a harder than usual workout, or working your muscles in a different way can all cause DOMS. DOMS typically lasts between 3 and 5 days. The pain, which can range from mild to severe, usually occurs 1 or 2 days after the exercise. This sort of muscle pain should not be confused with any kind of pain you might experience during exercise, such as the acute, sudden and sharp pain of an injury, such as muscle strains or sprains.

DOMS does not generally require medical intervention. But you should seek medical advice if the pain becomes unbearable, you experience severe swelling, or your urine becomes dark.

One of the best ways to prevent DOMS is to start any new activity programme gently and gradually. Allowing the muscle time to adapt to new movements should help minimise soreness. There's not much evidence that warming up will be effective in preventing DOMS. But exercising with warmed-up muscles will reduce your chance of injury and improve your performance.

While stretching has many benefits, there's currently no evidence stretching before or after exercise helps reduce or prevent DOMS. You can exercise with DOMS, although it may feel uncomfortable to begin with. The soreness should go away once your muscles have warmed up. The soreness will mostly likely return after exercising once your muscles have cooled down. If you find it hard to exercise, you could rest until the soreness goes away.

Alternatively, you could focus on exercises targeting less affected muscles to allow the most affected muscle groups time to recover. People may be able to prevent aching muscles from occurring due to tension, stress, and intense physical activity by doing the following:.

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