Is it possible to avoid soreness?

I have pledged to scale my workouts so that I'm not sore afterwards. 

Mostly I do pretty well on this.

But every once in a while, I do my usual work out, feel fine, and wake up the next day (or the day after that), with some moderate but bothersome soreness.

Is that just life? Nothing I can do about it except break out the foam roller? 

Any thoughts or suggestions. 

Hi Paul,

Thanks for reaching out. 

Good question. It's completely normal to experience some soreness after your training especially in the beginning.

How long have you been doing Foundation One and Stretch series? Are you still doing the daily limbering routine from the Fundamentals course? Doing some daily exercises might help your body adapt better and reduce the soreness. 

Not a newbie. Been with this program for about 10 months. Been active though my entire life (48 years). 

Just pretty much sick and tired of being sore. Been dealing with varying levels of DOMS for going on 35 years. (First time I remember having DOMS was after doing drop sets of bench in high school.)

Sure, I warm up before I work out and yes I do some mobility work every day. But I'm still sore sometimes. Not always but sometimes. 

Of course, I could always do more. 

But I was kind of hoping for a suggestion other than "stretch more/warm up more". 

I generally spend a solid 15 minutes doing a dynamic warm up before I put any kind of load on my muscles. If that's not enough. . . i don't know. 

Unfortunately there are no solution on how to avoid soreness completely. As you already mentioned you could reduce the intensity, especially for the Stretch series. However, when progressing through your training and especially when doing new exercises it's completely normal to feel some soreness  

Some athletes use ice baths and sauna after training to help the recovery. This might be worth trying. And on days you feel very sore it will definitely relieve the soreness by doing some limbering  

yeah, that's what i was afraid of. just life.

sauna might be ok, but an ice bath is a cure that's worse than the disease in my book. 

Thanks. 

I hope hope it helps, Paul. Please let me know how you go  

1 hour ago, PAUL DALY said:

yeah, that's what i was afraid of. just life.

sauna might be ok, but an ice bath is a cure that's worse than the disease in my book. 

Thanks. 

 

In Finland we say "if sauna, booze or tar doesn't cure it, it"ll kill you".

Might want to try magnesium and potassium supplements before tar and booze, though.

58 minutes ago, Petri Widsten said:

In Finland we say "if sauna, booze or tar doesn't cure it, it"ll kill you".

When I lived in northern Sweden, we used to go straight from the sauna into the deep snow… it cured pretty much everything  :-) 

Now, living in sunny California, I am taking ice cold showers first thing in the morning. It seems to work excellent for my body (that is training every day), @PAUL DALY. Maybe you could get used to it with a little motivation and will  :-) and see, maybe it will work for you too. 

3 minutes ago, Suzanna McGee said:

When I lived in northern Sweden, we used to go straight from the sauna into the deep snow… it cured pretty much everything  :-) 

Now, living in sunny California, I am taking ice cold showers first thing in the morning. It seems to work excellent for my body (that is training every day), @PAUL DALY. Maybe you could get used to it with a little motivation and will  :-) and see, maybe it will work for you too. 

Yeah, sauna + snow/lake/cold pool are great combos!

I get my share of DOMS, in fact I am stiff in some places now from a bridge pull / front squat session yesterday, but it is not common for me to be sore after every workout. Certainly if you are spending a bit of time on the same element (s) you shouldn't have too much recurring soreness from them - stiffness yes, possibly what I call 'education' cramps from mobility exercises and extending the ROM you are used to, but not actively sore.

Happening when you move up an element is a just life thing, cured for me by drinking plenty of water, getting sleep and stretching smart, but happening chronically / out of the blue at Foundation level might be signal you are pushing something a little too hard. 

If it's from mobility, embrace it as best you can, because it is learning pains and the body trying to cope with new feedback

Hey Paul,

I have suffered DOMS my whole fitness career as well and it is my understanding that we know the mechanism that causes but don't understand why some exeperience it and others don't. Yet another of my genetic flaws I guess:)

My cure, sad to say, cold. As cold as you can handle uncomfortably (I don't do ice baths). 

Check out the crazy man Wim Hof. Weird, wonderful, but probably a little bit of truth to his breathing and cold ideas.

I have been cold showering for a few years now (not every shower, just the post workout ones) and it really has kept DOMS at bay. It is the Wim Hof breathing that made the cold showers workable for me. After you expell all your breath and hold for as long as you can, plus a bit longer, you then breath in and hold then  the coldest water feels warm with the oxygen rush. 

Google it, worth it for me and my DOMS. 

Dan

great suggestions everyone. cold showers not my thing but will try.

just to be clear this is far from an everyday thing -- and I can't even really pin point what triggers it. Did my regular old work out wednesday night, did my mobility work thursday evening and noticed some tightness, not much, woke up friday morning. . . uncomfortably sore. Not severe, but not fun either.

curious. . . the sauna and booze I get. . . but what does one do with tar??

On 3/17/2017 at 6:59 PM, PAUL DALY said:

great suggestions everyone. cold showers not my thing but will try.

just to be clear this is far from an everyday thing -- and I can't even really pin point what triggers it. Did my regular old work out wednesday night, did my mobility work thursday evening and noticed some tightness, not much, woke up friday morning. . . uncomfortably sore. Not severe, but not fun either.

 

Was there any other difference in stress in life or diet different in that period? Something that would have caused you to not be totally recovered by the second workout? Also- a full 8 hours or so of sleep i assume every night?

Assuming that diet is totally dialed in with the correct amount of carbs/fat/protein, there obviously are additional supplements one could use too, creatine, glutamine, whey protein etc, which all can provide different benefits.

On ‎18‎/‎03‎/‎2017 at 1:08 PM, PAUL DALY said:

curious. . . the sauna and booze I get. . . but what does one do with tar??

 

People would inhale the fumes to treat respiratory tract diseases and it was used successfully to treat tuberculosis. Tar is also antibacterial and can be used to treat skin diseases.

6 hours ago, Petri Widsten said:

People would inhale the fumes to treat respiratory tract diseases and it was used successfully to treat tuberculosis. Tar is also antibacterial and can be used to treat skin diseases.

Well, I learned something today

Hot and cold shock at the right times can really help!

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1113/JP272881/full

http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/apnm-2016-0582#.WNAF5xLysyl

My experience is that slight soreness is expected at least sometimes, but it need not be so bad that it bothers you during your day.

I at least get the bad, intense soreness which gets in the way of a normal day only when doing something new with very high effort. To avoid this, I usually make the workout a bit soft if it is something new or if I have had time away from working out. The next workout I can go all-in without problems. That way I don't get the really bad soreness. And it also helps learning correct form to take it a bit easy with something new.

If you have joint or tendon soreness then you might be overusing and injuring yourself. For instance, I hurt my hands recently in some exercises because of the heavy weight of my body on them. I developed a pain between the bones of my fingers inside my palm. I solved that by scaling back and staying at a lower effort level for several weeks until my body got stronger to handle it.