How To Abolish Muscle Soreness (DOMS) following a Hard Race or Training Ride

This week, we explore the entire ‘recovery toolbox’ available to reduce muscle soreness in cyclists following a hard race, event or training session.
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During intense cycling, ultrastructural muscle injuries occur, resulting in a loss of muscle function and force generating capabilities. In return, muscle performance drops, and work capacity in following races or sessions decline.⁣⁣
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Muscle fibre damage is one of the key factors in muscle fatigue, and strategies to restore this will be key to training session and competition success.⁣⁣
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This is known as delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), which is the soreness, stiffness, loss of range of motion and intramuscular swelling that starts 6-12hr following exercise and peaks ~48-72hrs post.⁣⁣
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In this case, a 2019 review by Hotfiel et al has identified the core drivers to accelerate recovery from exercise induced muscle damage (EIMD) to help develop your ideal recovery protocol:⁣⁣
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1) SLEEP: This is the best performance enhancing regenerative tool an athlete has – focus on sleep hygiene habits to improve sleep onset latency (time taken to fall asleep), sleep quality and duration: Aim for 7-9hrs/night and aim to awaken well rested, and remain to be alert throughout the day.⁣⁣
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2) COMPRESS: Compression garments (6hr use post exercise) have shown positive effects on recovery of strength and function of treated muscle groups – potentially a result of improved clearance of metabolites from the circulatory system, enhanced repair of the damaged muscle and improvements in muscle stiffness. Intermittent compression (i.e. NormaTec) may play a role in recovery, but research is lacking.⁣⁣
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3) COLD: Cold water immersion (CWI) therapy is an effective strategy to alleviate physiological and functional deficits: Between 11-15 °C for ~15 minutes appears to be most effective to reduce DOMS in endurance-based modalities.⁣⁣
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However, those with heightened hypertrophy goals may need to consider CWI due to the potential reduction in anabolic signalling and changes in long term muscle development (Roberts et al, 2015) – Therefore the question is, what’s most critical, adaptation vs recovery?

Therefore, CWI should be used following races where recovery is of a high priority – This will support freshness and readiness to train soon after, and therefore the quality of your next training session will be high.

In contrast, since muscle adaptation is the primary focus of training, strategies that potentially conflict this outcome should be avoided, i.e. CWI.

4) HEAT: Controversial and mixed findings – Some studies have shown improvements in muscle repair, circulation, tissue nutrition, strength, and hypertrophy. Some research has contrasting findings. When combined with CWI, contrast supports recovery, but not superior to other recovery methods.

5) ACTIVE: It’s been proposed that low intensity exercise after hard training can alleviate DOMS due to the breakup of adhesions in sore muscles, an increased removal of waste products via an increased blood flow or an increased endorphin release: 15 mins of low intensity pedalling directly after intense exercise may have recovery enhancing effects but may not play a role in muscle healing.

6) NUTRITION: This is without a doubt one of the most important components to accelerating recovery following an ‘exercise insult’. Considering the large homeostatic disturbances following a demanding ride, your food management (food quantity, quality and timing) has the ability to restore physiological functioning so the legs are fresh and recovered in time for your next ride.

We’ve previously covered the 4R Framework to accelerate recovery post rides. If you missed this, please read here.

In addition to refining protein, carbohydrate and fluid intake, we can explore highly effective ‘precovery’ strategies – As this is a large topic in itself, we’ll be covering this next week!

Ultimately, the aim is to restore homeostasis as quick as possible to ensure optimal performance is achieved in time for your next training ride or race, therefore, mindfulness surrounding these strategies is strongly advised to support these outcomes.