Anyone Up for a Little DOMS?

DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) - Delayed onset muscle soreness signals a natural adaptive process that the body initiates following intense exercise. DOMS has been shown to produce a rapid adaptation response, which means that the muscles adapt to exercise intensity.

Too much DOMS, and the required recovery period becomes so long (3 days or longer) that you aren’t able to realize the full benefits of frequent training. Not enough DOMS means you are not getting stronger. It’s another one of those “moderation is the key” kind of deals.

I love DOMS. For as long as I’m throwing competitively my goal is always to either have a little of it, or to just have gotten over it and to be working on getting it again. It’s only by triggering the adaptation response in muscles that they get stronger, and it’s only by regularly triggering it (after sufficient recovery) that they get stronger in the shortest amount of time. Formula: work hard, rest and recover, repeat.
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I lifted weights yesterday after a 6-day layoff, and I’m feeling really good as a result. I was starting to feel a little sluggish, but some hard work in the gym completely eliminated that.

It’s not that I intentionally took a mini-break from working out. The first missed opportunity was due to my allergies flaring up when a cold front blew in, and I honestly felt as if I was getting the flu. After getting that problem under control I went back to the gym and was putting on my work out clothes when I discovered I had not packed a shirt. So yesterday became my next window of opportunity, which I seized with a lot of enthusiasm.

Actually, taking occasional short breaks is a very good thing, and is one of the hardest parts of a training regimen for highly goal-oriented people to adopt. Not practicing, and not exercising are universally recognized as detrimental to performance, but once one develops the will power and motivation to overcome those obstacles, the value of rest and recovery are often overlooked. I’ve run into problems in the past with my performances tapering off late in the season, and I attribute that to an accumulation of insufficient recovery times over the course of my training program. This year I plan to take off 3 or 4 consecutive days every 6-8 weeks as an insurance policy against burn-out toward the end of the season.

During yesterday’s session I was able to move up in weight on bench press, clean, and squat. (Yes, I have a little DOMS today, thank you.) The numbers are still rather ho-hum, but they continue to move in the right direction and should be approaching respectable levels in a few months. One milestone I’m looking forward to is being able to bench press my body weight, a mark which I should reach some time in the April-May timeframe. I only hope that at some point (and it had better be soon!) these increases in strength will start producing performance improvements in my throws.

Throwing practice has been difficult recently due to the weather. Until about 2 weeks ago I had been very lucky this winter to have been able to throw every weekend, but we’ve now entered a weather pattern in which the weather is beautiful during the week and rainy on the weekends. It’s been pretty frustrating, but in only about 3 weeks the days will be long enough once again to allow throwing after work. That will not be a day too soon, as I’ve just entered my last training cycle before the season begins.