Cathe, why is lower body DOMS is so severe?

[Traildoggie]

My upper body rarely gets significant DOMS. lower body is another story. I'm doing STS a third time. We had several 5 day mini vacations .. every day did serious hiking or mountain biking, uphill and downhill. huge leg workout.
Got home and did a meso 2 leg disk backing off from the weight I'd been using. now I'm so sore I'm almost crippled. the workout didn't seem difficult at the time. for upper body I continued to increase weight and got no DOMS even though they didn't get much of a workout hiking or biking.

I don't understand the "why" of this. If I sat on the beach for 2 weeks I'd understand soreness when getting back to a routine. It feels like the same muscles are used in hiking and mountain biking as in squats and lunges, and for much longer times. It seems there should be some overlap in conditioning but I am so sore it's ridiculous. Why? I do light treadmill work until the pain eases up, probably in 4 days.

 

[Cathe Friedrich]

DOMS

Hi Traildoggie! Surprisingly, DOMS are not completely understood and much research in this area continues to be done. DOMS (aka: delayed onset muscle soreness) is caused mainly by the eccentric phase of an exercise, that is the lengthening phase or negative part of the exercise, like when you lower a barbell towards your chest in a bench press. On the other hand, research shows the concentric phase of an exercise, like the lifting phase, or positive portion of the movement, like the pressing up portion of the bench press, does not seem to cause DOMs.

In the case of hiking, the uphill phase is not likely to contribute to DOMS, however the downhill phase will. Unless, of course one uses walking sticks to help share the load of the descending phase, in which the DOMS would be significantly reduced. But most people do not regularly hike on hugely steep trails for long periods of time and therefore do not experience DOMS as easily (unless of course you are brand new to hiking).

In STS however, you are more likely to experience DOMS because not only are you doing a plethora of exercises from a variety of angles, but you are doing them repetitively and many times in rep patterns that focus even more so on eccentric phase of the movement. Let’s look at a lunge for example….not only is it worked from so many angles, but I play with a popular rep pattern that goes down three and up one, therefore keeping you in the eccentric phase three times longer (per rep) then the concentric phase (thought you were just doing that for fun huh, lol?)

Again, there is much research that continues to be done on DOMS, however, I shared the research that applies directly to your question in hopes of giving you a better understanding as to how muscles that appear to be doing similar movements in different workouts can elicit such a different response.

 

[spyrosmom]

Traildoggie thanks for asking, and Cathe thanks for asking. I have often wondered this myself. Especially on days when it hurts to walk!!! I use my legs all the time, more than my upper body (at least for daily life) why do they hurt so freakin' much (hurts so good, though!)

I always thought those 3 count lunges were just to be evil. Don't try to hide behind science on that one, Cathe!!! You do it to torture us

Nan

 

[JanetP1507]

Thanks for your input Cathe. It's such a catch-22 for me.....I WANT to make my lower body stronger but when I use heavy weights, I'm paralyzed for 4 days or so and can't do any cardio during that time (sometimes walking is even slow and difficult) and I HATE that....so...what to do?

If only I could have been born with Cathe's legs.....

 

[Traildoggie]

So I'm not a medical enigma?? Wow, great news. Thank you, Cathe!

I can attest to downhill walking causing more pain. the steeper the slope the more you need to "brake" to keep feet from sliding. and that "braking" feels a lot like "down 3, up 1" in a lunge but it's more in the quads.
I'm trying to understand this... if the quads are shortening (concentric), then the hamstrings must of the lengthening (eccentric)? they must work opposite of each other? all parts of my legs got sore but the worst was the sit-down muscles, rear upper thigh and butt. this was typical for me.

I hike with poles all the time. I recommend them to any hikers reading this.
(maybe a pole assist with squats can be worked out? ) another benefit to poles is they bring in bicep/ tricep while taking some stress off knees/thighs..so my arms don't get sore easily.
when I think about it, bicycling seems to involve mostly the front of the legs in an uphill motion. downhill, the brakes on the bike handle it, not my legs.

I've learned my lesson though, I will back off significantly on weight after a several week break, even if I've been active.