DOMS Explained: Why You're Sore Two Days After Training and How Sports Massage Helps

You smashed a hard leg session on Monday. Tuesday you feel fine. Then Wednesday arrives and suddenly you can barely walk down the stairs. If this sounds familiar, you've experienced Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness — DOMS — and you're far from alone. It's one of the most misunderstood phenomena in sport and exercise, and one of the most common reasons athletes in Pretoria book in with us at AHSM.

What Is DOMS?

Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness refers to the muscular pain, stiffness, and reduced range of motion that typically peaks 24–72 hours after unaccustomed or high-intensity exercise. It's most pronounced after eccentric loading — the lengthening phase of a muscle contraction — which is why downhill running, heavy squats, and plyometric work tend to cause more soreness than comparable concentric exercise.

For a long time, lactic acid was blamed for DOMS. We now know this is incorrect — lactic acid clears the bloodstream within an hour of exercise. DOMS is actually caused by microscopic damage to muscle fibres and surrounding connective tissue, triggering an inflammatory response as the body repairs and adapts the affected tissue.

Is DOMS Necessary for Progress?

This is a persistent myth in gym culture — the idea that if you're not sore, you haven't worked hard enough. The truth is more nuanced. Mild DOMS can indicate that you've challenged your muscles in a new way, but severe soreness is not a prerequisite for adaptation. Experienced athletes often experience little DOMS despite training hard, because their tissues have adapted to absorb and recover from training stress more efficiently.

Chasing soreness is not a sound training strategy — and if DOMS is regularly severe enough to impair subsequent sessions, it's a sign that training load, recovery, or both need attention.

How Sports Massage Helps With DOMS

Research consistently shows that sports massage reduces the subjective experience of DOMS and improves recovery markers. The mechanisms include enhanced circulation to the affected area, which accelerates the removal of inflammatory byproducts and delivery of repair nutrients; reduced muscle tension and protective guarding around sore tissue; stimulation of the parasympathetic nervous system, which supports the recovery state; and mechanical disruption of adhesions forming in damaged tissue before they become chronic.

A 2012 meta-analysis in the Journal of Athletic Training found that massage was the most effective recovery modality for reducing DOMS compared to active recovery, cryotherapy, and compression. While the effect size is moderate, consistent massage reduces both the severity and duration of soreness — meaning less interrupted training and better long-term load accumulation.

When to Book Your Post-Training Massage

Timing matters. Booking a deep session immediately after a very intense workout — when tissue is acutely inflamed — can increase soreness in the short term. For best results, wait 24–48 hours after a hard session before booking a recovery massage. This allows the initial acute inflammation to settle, and the massage can then support the repair phase rather than working against it.

For athletes who train frequently, regular maintenance massage every 2–3 weeks significantly blunts the severity of DOMS by keeping tissue quality high and reducing the accumulated tension that amplifies soreness after hard sessions.

If you're in Pretoria and finding that soreness is limiting your training consistency, book a 60-minute or 90-minute sports massage session at AHSM. We'll work with your training schedule to keep your recovery on track.