75/365 Dodgeball DOMS

Friends and Fitness Enthusiasts,

The other night, I played dodge ball with some classmates and fellow students; we had a grand time. I realized that I hadn't actually played a sport like that in a long time (I have to admit that the way Sarah and I play racquetball is not very intense). My intercostals, lower back, abdominal, and rotator cuff muscles are all sore. Don't I work out though? Don't I run and lift? Why am I so sore that it hurts to laugh and sneeze?

The kinesiology behind playing sports and exercising is completely different. In sports we use multiple muscles at once while weight lifting is mostly single muscles being utilized at a time. Playing sports can be uncontrollable and subject to what happens during the game while weight lifting is performed in a controlled setting. The pain I feel is called delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). This usually occurs at the beginning of training (if you are untrained) or when you start a new training regimen. This could have been prevented if my team and I did a dynamic warm up and stretched at the end of the night.

Alas, I am paying for it now. The lesson here is to ease yourself into new exercises. Warm yourself thoroughly and stretch afterward. If you have DOMS, rest, stretch, and take it easy.

In health,

Lauren

PS: I just sneezed...ouch