Your Weight Loss Workout DOMS Isn’t Lactic Acid!

May 21, 2023 Ashley 0 Comments

So, yesterday, I returned to running high intensity intervals.

After getting diagnosed with a Haglund’s deformity – from running too much and too hard during Covid – I decided to switch it up. For a while, running got totally stowed. Instead, I decided some cross training might be a good idea. (And so did my bank account – which can’t afford to “foot” the bill for my running addiction when calcaneal surgery becomes an inevitable must.) But, now, I was getting back to it with a plan to moderate better. Although I do hardcore cardio every day (elliptical), I knew running was going to hit (HIIT?) different. And I wasn’t wrong. After day one, that old familiar soreness returned with a vengeance. From the moment I woke up, I knew that lactic acid was already coursing through my muscles. Or… was it lactic acid? Not to wax too nerdy, but apparently we’ve all been getting that term wrong. Every time we refer to that hot, burning pinch in our muscles and call it “lactic acid”, we’re all way off. I include myself in on this population of the ignorant, mind you. And the degree to which we’ve all been wrong is two-fold. The first part to our wrongness is that it’s not lactic acid in our muscles. It’s actually a combination of lactate and hydrogen ions.

Because those ions create an acidic environment, they create a temporary burn.

But this little “more you know” moment of science is utterly useless anyway.

I say that because the truth is that it’s not even lactate or those dastardly ions that are to blame. They aren’t the reason for that next day suffering that makes walking feel like wielding bilateral oak trunks. That morning after burn that lasts several days isn’t ions or lactate or acid of any kind. Its delayed onset muscle soreness. (Also known as DOMS.) While this phenomenon is complex and many have theories as to how it transpires, the most popular is that you get little micro-tears in your muscles. This is what’s causing that pain. For a few days, it feels like piranhas are gobbling your quads and delts after that big run or lift. Then, suddenly… it’s not so bad. (Unless you run again too soon, like yours truly used to do.) And, slowly, as you continue working this muscle group consistently, that pain goes away altogether each time you do said workout.

But what does this mean? Can you still lift and run? Yes and no. Yes, you can do a different type of workout (swimming or yoga, perhaps). And, if you want to stick with cardio – maybe opt for elliptical. (That’s been saving me and my endurance for the past half year). But, also, no. No, you don’t want to do that same workout. You want to give the muscles a chance to repair so you can do the same thing all over again in a few days time. The other reason – aside from healing – is safety. Muscles undergo something called pain inhibition and failure. If you’re in too much pain performing a certain movement, they stop working. Likewise, if you’ve overworked a muscle, it hits a failure point. I learned this one the hard way when I’d done an hour of treadmill HIIT two or three years ago, for the third day in a row and nearly face planted on the machine belt. It was like my legs just left the chat.

And, with that, the mystery is solved.

It’s not lactic acid.

It’s lactate and ions and it doesn’t matter because DOMS is why you’re hurting anyway.

You’re welcome.