You did a hard session yesterday. You wake up this morning and your legs feel like they've been filled with concrete. Now you're staring at your training plan wondering whether to lace up or lie down.
It's one of the most common questions I get asked. And the answer isn't as simple as "push through it" or "rest up." It depends on what DOMS actually is, how bad yours is, and what kind of training you're planning.
What Is DOMS, Actually?
DOMS stands for Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. It's the stiffness and aching that kicks in roughly 12 to 48 hours after exercise, peaks around the 24 to 72 hour mark, and usually clears up within a few days.
It's caused by microscopic damage to muscle fibres, mainly from eccentric loading. That's the lengthening phase of a movement, think downhill running, the lowering part of a squat, or a long stride on tired legs. Your body responds with an inflammatory process to repair and adapt. That's why you feel it so much after a long run with hills, or after your first track session in a while.
Is DOMS a Sign of a Good Workout?
Not necessarily. DOMS tells you that you did something your body wasn't fully adapted to. That's it. It doesn't measure how effective the session was. It doesn't confirm you worked hard enough. And the absence of DOMS doesn't mean you had a bad session.
Plenty of runners in Rotherham tell me they feel cheated if they're not sore the next day. I get it. But chasing soreness is a trap. It leads to constantly changing your training, going too hard too soon, and never letting your body settle into a proper adaptation cycle.
An experienced runner doing consistent, well-structured training will often feel very little DOMS. Not because they're not working hard. Because their body has adapted.
How Long Does DOMS Last?
For most people, most of the time, DOMS lasts 2 to 4 days. Mild soreness might clear up in 24 to 48 hours. A seriously hard session with a lot of eccentric work, like a long fell run or a heavy leg session in the gym, can leave you sore for 3 to 5 days.
If the soreness is still significant beyond 5 or 6 days, that's worth paying attention to. Either the session was too much of a jump from what your body was used to, or something else is going on. That's when it's worth getting it looked at properly rather than just grinding through.
Should You Train With DOMS?
The short answer: mild DOMS, yes. Severe DOMS, no.
Here's how I'd break it down.
Mild DOMS is that dull, achy, "I know I worked hard" feeling. A bit stiff getting out of bed, but it loosens off after 10 minutes of moving around. Easy running is generally fine with mild DOMS. Active recovery, a gentle jog, some mobility work, it all helps increase blood flow and can actually speed up how quickly you feel better.
Moderate to severe DOMS is where it's visibly affecting how you move. You're changing your running gait to compensate. You're limping on stairs. You can't fully extend your knee or get into a normal stride pattern. Training hard through that is a bad idea. Not because you'll die, but because altered movement patterns under load are how compensation injuries happen. I see that a lot with runners who come into the clinic in Rotherham after picking up a knee or hip problem that started as something that seemed unrelated.
And if the soreness is in one specific spot rather than spread across a muscle group, that's not DOMS. That's something else. Get it checked.
What About Running Specifically?
Running with DOMS is a bit trickier than some other sports because of how much eccentric loading is involved. Every foot strike is a controlled landing. Your quads, hamstrings, and calves are working hard to absorb force, and they're doing it on tissue that's already inflamed and repairing.
Easy conversational-pace running is usually fine. It keeps the blood moving, maintains your aerobic base, and doesn't stress the muscle further. What I'd avoid is any quality session: intervals, tempo work, hill reps, anything where you're asking for near-maximal effort from a muscle that's still recovering. You won't get the training benefit anyway, because the fatigue masks the adaptation signal. You're just adding stress on top of stress.
If you're based in South Yorkshire and following a marathon or half marathon plan, this matters a lot in the build-up phase. Running junk miles through heavy DOMS doesn't move you forward. It just delays recovery and risks tipping you into an injury.
Does Massage Help With DOMS?
Yes. It's not a cure, but it genuinely helps. Massage increases blood flow to the affected tissue, reduces some of the inflammatory byproducts building up in the muscle, and addresses the protective tension the body puts up around sore areas. Most people feel notably looser and less sore after a session, and the research backs it up.
The timing matters too. A recovery-focused sports massage in Rotherham in the 24 to 72 hour window after a hard session is one of the more effective ways to move through DOMS faster. Not the day after a race when everything is completely wrecked, but after a hard long run or a tough training block, it makes a real difference.
I work out of Treeton, just off the Sheffield Parkway and about 10 minutes from Meadowhall, so it's easy to get to from both Sheffield and Rotherham.
Practical Rules for Runners
- Mild soreness, loosens up quickly: run easy, no quality work.
- Moderate soreness, gait is affected: rest or very gentle movement only.
- Severe soreness or one specific painful spot: rest and get it assessed.
- DOMS that doesn't clear within 5 to 6 days: don't ignore it.
- Consistent DOMS after every session: your training load is probably too high or your recovery is poor.
If you keep getting hammered by soreness after every run, the problem isn't toughness. It's load management. That might mean looking at your training plan, your sleep, your nutrition, or how much soft tissue work you're getting in between sessions.
A lot of runners I see from across the Rotherham area are training hard but not recovering anywhere near as well as they could. They assume soreness is just part of it. Sometimes it is. But often there's a straightforward fix.
If you want to know more about how sports injury treatment and regular soft tissue work fits into a training plan, take a look, or just book a session and we can go from there. Also worth a read: the HH blog has more on training, recovery, and keeping yourself running consistently.
