Why am I so sore after lifting?

What DOMS is

DOMS is the stiff, tender ache you feel in a muscle a day or two after training it. Your quads complain on the stairs. Your chest hurts when you reach for the seatbelt.

The delay is the giveaway. You usually feel fine walking out of the gym. Soreness starts around 12 to 24 hours later, peaks between 24 and 72 hours, then fades over the next few days. If day 2 feels worse than day 1, that's normal.

It feels like a dull ache spread across the whole muscle, on both sides of your body. It's worst when you first start moving and eases once you're warmed up.

What causes it

DOMS comes from small amounts of damage inside muscle fibers when they do work they aren't used to. Over the next day or two, your body sends an inflammatory response to clean up and repair it. That inflammation makes nerve endings in the muscle more sensitive, and that's the ache.

The lowering half of a rep does most of the damage. That's the part where the muscle lengthens while it's working, like lowering into a squat or letting a dumbbell down in a curl. Exercises with a long, loaded lowering phase, such as Romanian deadlifts, lunges and split squats, tend to leave people the most sore. Walking downhill does it too, which is why a hike can wreck your quads for days.

Lactic acid isn't the cause. Your body clears lactate within about an hour of stopping, long before soreness starts. In one well-known study, people who ran downhill had the lowest lactate levels and the worst soreness afterward.

The damage is minor and repairs on its own. It isn't a strain or a tear.

Why it's worst when you're new

The first time a muscle does a new kind of work, it gets the most damage and the most soreness. In your first week, every muscle you train is new to the job, so you feel all of them at once.

Then your body adapts, fast. Researchers call it the repeated bout effect. One session of an exercise protects that muscle from most of the damage the next time you do it, and the protection lasts several weeks. It only applies to the muscles you trained.

So your first one or two weeks are the sorest you'll be on a routine. By week 3 or 4, the same workouts usually leave you only a little stiff, even as the weights go up. Take a few weeks off and some of that protection fades, so start lighter when you come back. A brand new exercise can still make you sore months in.

Soreness also isn't a sign of a good workout. Experienced lifters build muscle with very little of it, and research finds no strong link between how sore you get and how much muscle you build.

What to do about it

Time fixes DOMS. Nothing makes it disappear overnight, but a few things make the next few days easier.

Keep moving. A walk, an easy bike ride or a light session eases the stiffness while you're doing it.

Start lighter in week 1. Pick weights where you could do 2 or 3 more reps at the end of each set, using the starting weight guide. You'll still get sore, just less.

Train again on schedule. Mild soreness is fine to train through. If a muscle is very sore, go lighter or train a different muscle that day. The days per week guide has schedules that leave room to recover.

Sleep and eat normally. Repair happens on its own, and it goes better when you aren't short on either.

Stretching feels nice, but a large review found it doesn't reduce soreness before or after exercise. Massage and foam rolling can give a little short-term relief.

Normal soreness or something else

DOMS is a dull ache across the whole muscle, on both sides, in the muscles you trained. It eases as you warm up and is gone in 2 to 4 days.

Get it looked at if the pain is sharp and in one spot, sits in a joint instead of a muscle, gets worse when you move, comes with swelling or bruising, or is still there after a week. Very dark, cola-colored urine with severe muscle pain after a hard workout needs a doctor the same day.

Soreness FAQ