S*** happens. I mean, SORE happens. Especially for Lifetime Athletes. Sometimes in training. But certainly coming off of big events and competitions.
You can get sore – and stiff and tired – anywhere in your body. But it is quite common in the legs and especially during summer and fall. We will generally see this in two distinct subsets of our population.
First, there’s the locomotors. These are our runners and hikers. Soreness frequently hits these cats the day after a long hike or run, especially if it was in hilly terrain. That’s mainly due to the high volume of eccentric (lengthening) contractions their muscles handle on the downhills. Soreness often occurs the day after a race, long training session, or targeted event.
Then we have the multidirectional athletes. These folks play tennis, basketball, soccer or other sports which require fast changes of direction, explosive anti-gravity movements, and significant amounts of acceleration and deceleration. The muscles and connective tissues of the legs get quite a workout. Tournaments and other competitions can really pile on these physical demands to the lower extremities.
You might be inclined to label both of these groups as “weekend warriors.” In a sense, they are indeed because it’s usually on the weekends when the events are held and/or the athlete has enough time available to enjoy a lengthy session. But the term weekend warrior connotes someone who does no training during the week and then goes hog wild on the weekend. That’s not really a fair descriptor of our Lifetime Athletes. They train regularly and simply wage war (in the athletic sense) on the weekend out of tradition or necessity.
Consequently, many Lifetime Athletes wake up on Monday morning with sore legs. You know the drill. Getting out of bed feels a little gimpy, you’re moving slowly and having at least slight difficulty on the stairs or toilet. Anything from mild annoyance to severe limitations. No big deal really. Even with proper training and recovery practices, Monday morning soreness is an occasional and normal event. It’s the price we pay for being Lifetime Athletes. And we generally consider this soreness to be “worth it.”
The questions surrounding this type of leg soreness, which come up frequently in our community, look like these:
- What’s going on in my legs?
- Should I be concerned that I’ve done permanent damage?
- Could I have prevented this discomfort?
- Are there any benefits to going through this experience?
- How do I effectively address this soreness and return to my regular training (and play) as soon as possible?
The age-old theory regarding post-event muscle soreness revolved around the concept of delayed onset muscle soreness or DOMS. All those eccentric contractions were thought to cause muscle fiber microdamage and metabolite accumulation. While this is certainly a factor, newer research suggests that there are at least two additional sources of soreness.
The deep investing fascia of muscles (think sausage casings) may undergo transient collagen breakdown after high volume exercise. These areas are also highly innervated with pain receptors and heightened sensitivity is related to an inhibitory, or protective response.
There may also be a number of neural mechanisms for soreness. These include several types of nerve compression/irritation as well as temporary disruption of transport mechanisms involving a variety of substrates.
Without going too deep here, and in the exception of extreme cases, soreness is natural and nothing to worry about. The body responds to workload volume by producing soreness and defining its limits. But the very exposure to these high stimuli result in adaptations that push the ceiling, or threshold for the onset of soreness, higher. In other words, after an inoculation, or dose-response effect, you’ll be less likely to get as sore under subsequent similar conditions. This is true as long as you train consistently.
Soreness that lasts 1-3 days is essentially normal and of little concern. But if it is significantly incapacitating and lasts longer, it suggests that the athletes overall training level (for prevention and tolerance) should be gradually increased, and better judgment (regarding volume) on event days should be employed.
This leads us directly into the consideration of soreness prevention. As we’ve discussed, you can’t completely prevent leg soreness because it is natural, normal, and necessary. But you can certainly keep it at reasonable levels. That’s mainly done with good program design and prudent intrasession adjustment. Program design speaks to proper management of the acute:chronic workload ratio and stimulus/recovery balance. Intrasession adjustment means the athlete and/or coach make the necessary modifications in the workouts and schedule in the presence of soreness.
Hydration, nutrition, and sleep can also help. Avoiding getting dehydrated. Consume nutritious foods which support muscle tissue repair and glycogen replenishment, and get high quality/adequate duration sleep. All of these will reduce the amount of soreness you feel. But no amount of curcumin, walnuts, fish oil, or acai berries will be magic.
Muscle soreness has some unique benefits. It can tell you that you “did enough” or worked to your limits. This can be reassuring for the athlete pursuing peak performance and wanting to push limits or leave no stone unturned in their quest for excellence. And as we mentioned earlier, soreness drives adaptation and increases workload tolerance. In general and with good training, over time you tend to get less and less sore. This is a good thing. We just don’t want to feel like we did “too much” competition or training and are crushed for a week or three. This represents tissue damage which is repairable but takes you out of solid training or competition for long periods of time. Thus, you can lose or at least not increase fitness as compared to more sensible training, and you probably can’t perform at your best either.
I typically recommend a fairly basic protocol for athletes with acute leg soreness. Most of the time we expected it and had already put a plan in place. The value of hydration, nutrition, sleep, and stress management are obvious regarding the recovery process, but there are a few additional considerations. I’ll bullet out a couple suggestions.
- Workout Spacing: Let’s say a competition or big “fitness maker” workout occurred on the weekend. I’ll insert 1-3 easy (light recovery-based) workouts on the following days before it’s time to go big again. This depends on age, training experience, and recovery ability of the athlete. Younger, highly conditioned athletes often only need 1 easy day before the next large bout of exercise. Older athletes may require 4-5. But most people at any age tend to do very well with 2-3 light days between major (high workload) sessions. There will always be the camp that says “just toughen up, bull through it, ignore it, and keep going hard.” Most of the time this results in chronic fatigue, compounded tissue damage, subpar performance, injury, frustration, and burnout. So I spend a lot of time with my clients explaining the value of proper recovery training.
- Cold Soaks: These are popular and controversial, but they’ve also been around for a long time. It is true that if you do a cold tank (or stream, etc.) long enough and cold enough, you will blunt some of the muscular adaptations to training. So I like to use these strategically. If soreness is mild and we’re only taking 1-2 easy days, I recommend skipping the cold soak and letting nature take its course. But if soreness is more pronounced, and the athlete reports it being on the edge of “too much,” I like the use of a cold tank on the same day and on the first day after a big muscular insult. Any small adaptations we may lose in the hard-training athlete is more than made up for by being able to get back to regular training more rapidly and not miss or extensively delay key sessions.
- Heat Exposure: Hot tubs, heating pads, saunas, etc. increase circulation and tissue extensibility. They can help us to feel more mobile when in a sore or stiffened state. But they also can drive up inflammation. So I like to see these show up later, such as 48-72 hours after the onset of soreness. We’ve used the principle of cold early, heat later with many athletes for decades.
- Stretching: This is a tool which should be utilized appropriately. In the presence of peak soreness and inflammation (usually the first 24-48 hours), stretching can be contraindicated, or at least not exceptionally valuable. If tissues are sufficiently irritated, early and aggressive stretching can introduce microtearing stresses and actually delay recovery. The gentle stuff is OK but I don’t usually like to bring in stretching until it’s time for heat. Telling some folks not to stretch in the first day or two can seem counterintuitive, but there’s scientific evidence to back it up. Let your use of stretching mirror that of heat.
- Massage: Hands-on bodywork, or any form of self-manipulation such as foam-rolling, certainly can hold a place of great value. Without sounding like a broken record here, give yourself a couple days following your acute soreness before you indulge. This should make perfect sense. Lighter work can start earlier. Save the really deep stuff til you’re not very sore at all.
- Anti-inflammatory medications: I’m not a pill-popper and I’m also not a pill-pusher. That stated, if things are really bad you might consider using a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug. But day-to-day training for a Lifetime Athlete should not require pharmaceutical input. Use good judgment here. Watch your GI tract for sensitivity. Know the side effects. Err on the side of less.
- Patience: Have the wisdom to know that soreness is a temporary experience. Your healthy body will clear it out fast. Taking on a confident mindset that relative rest in response to this situation is actually the best thing you can do.
Keep all these recommendations in mind as you experience soreness this summer (and beyond). Appreciate that there are actually identifiable genetic differences in the soreness response to athletics. Some people really flare up and take a long time to recover. Others hardly ever get sore, and when they do they bounce back quickly. You may even want to consider some DNA testing to see where you fall on that continuum. Regardless, that’s how you deal with sore legs. Thanks for joining me today.