The local tri club holds a 40K TT once a month that I have recently started participating in to monitor my progress sans power meter. My bike specific fitness is lacking, but my cardio respiratory system is pretty good so I’m able to push pretty hard. Both times I have gotten muscle soreness felt immediately after crossing the line and leaving aero position to cool down in my upper hamstring. The soreness seems to be located to a 5in square area just below my buttocks near the hamstring insertion. The soreness will linger for around a week before it subsides, but drops of drastically in intensity after the first or second day. This has happened at both time trials. I have never had this happen even after a very intense workout.
Abridged version: Can DOMs like symptoms onset immediately after exercise and not the day after as usual?
I had something happen to me twice after time trials that never happened otherwise. As soon as I stopped pedaling hard it was like my muscles were swollen and really sore (quads and glutes), like the worst case of DOMS ever and it didn’t go away like a “lactic acid” burn. I was limping around, could hardly drive stick shift home, and then over the course of the day it dissipated. So whatever it was it wasn’t DOMS, didn’t feel quite the same either. Can’t recall for sure but think I was fine the next day.
The local tri club holds a 40K TT once a month that I have recently started participating in to monitor my progress sans power meter. My bike specific fitness is lacking, but my cardio respiratory system is pretty good so I’m able to push pretty hard. Both times I have gotten muscle soreness felt immediately after crossing the line and leaving aero position to cool down in my upper hamstring. The soreness seems to be located to a 5in square area just below my buttocks near the hamstring insertion. The soreness will stay for around a week before it subsides. This has happened at both time trials. I have never had this happen even after a very intense workout.
Abridged version: Can DOMs like symptoms onset immediately after exercise and not the day after as usual?
I understand what the definition of DOMs is. So I understand what I experienced is not defined as such. I’m asking if we can experience similar symptoms to DOMs, but in a shorter onset. What ThisisIt experienced is more closely in line with what I felt. Almost as if I over accumulated lactic acid, and was slow to buffer out. By the second day it was 90% gone. Further contractions were not painful, just sore.
Maybe I should have more correctly titled the post “Is it possible to get DOMs like symptoms immediately following exercise”
I grew up playing soccer and have experienced muscle strains before, and this was, in my opinion, not it. The fact that the phenomenon was bilateral, and showed up twice confirms to me it was probably not a strain.
I understand what the definition of DOMs is. So I understand what I experienced is not defined as such. I’m asking if we can experience similar symptoms to DOMs, but in a shorter onset. What ThisisIt experienced is more closely in line with what I felt. Almost as if I over accumulated lactic acid, and was slow to buffer out. By the second day it was 90% gone. Further contractions were not painful, just sore.
Maybe I should have more correctly titled the post “Is it possible to get DOMs like symptoms immediately following exercise”
I grew up playing soccer and have experienced muscle strains before, and this was, in my opinion, not it. The fact that the phenomenon was bilateral, and showed up twice confirms to me it was probably not a strain.
I’ve had same thing happen on numerous occasions. I believe the correct description is "*immediate onset muscle soreness’. *This has happened to me whenever I’ve been training hard in two of the three tri components but doing reduced work in the third one, but then go too hard for my sport-specific fitness in the neglected sport. It has also happened when i just went too hard on a given workout, despite having been training regularly in that sport for months, e.g. you’ve been working your way up very gradually to longer and longer runs but after one long run when you finish, your legs just feel really painful, it hurts just to walk, and you can barely walk back to your dorm room. You just went past the edge of your fitness and your body is being sure you know. Happened all the time when i was in HS and college also, so it is not age-related per se:)
I’m trying to figure out what’s wrong with my calves. I trained in my new racing flats (I don’t normally wear racing flats) and at around the 10km mark started to get quite sore in the calves, so had to run on the grass verge. Felt OK afterwards, a little bit sore, but then in the morning was very tender in both calves, more so in the right. Trying to figure out if it’s DOMS or a small tears in the calves? Waiting to see a physio. I’m racing Sunday, however I don’t want to race/run and tear something. If it’s pain that I can run off, no worries, but don’t want to run on something that’s injured.
What is the heel-to drop on your usual shoes compared to your flats? Lots of posts and information about the ‘perils’ of too rapidly moving to flats.
I use a variety of shoes:
normal training shoes - Nike Pegasus (heel drop 10mm), long - Hoka Stinson, although I could still use my pegs if I wanted to
racing - normally Asics Noosa heel drop 10mm
The racing flats I just bought are Asics Hyper Speed (heel drop around 6mm). They are probably only going to be good for 5/10km races sprints/ODs. Was hoping to use them in 70.3s, but obviously that’s not a good idea at this moment in time.
I’m definitely not racing in the hyper speeds this weekend. Prefer to race in my Noosas, but I’m now wondering if I should go for the Hokas which I really don’t want to. They are slow as…
What is the heel-to drop on your usual shoes compared to your flats? Lots of posts and information about the ‘perils’ of too rapidly moving to flats.
I use a variety of shoes:
normal training shoes - Nike Pegasus (heel drop 10mm), long - Hoka Stinson, although I could still use my pegs if I wanted to
racing - normally Asics Noosa heel drop 10mm
The racing flats I just bought are Asics Hyper Speed (heel drop around 6mm). They are probably only going to be good for 5/10km races sprints/ODs. Was hoping to use them in 70.3s, but obviously that’s not a good idea at this moment in time.
I’m definitely not racing in the hyper speeds this weekend. Prefer to race in my Noosas, but I’m now wondering if I should go for the Hokas which I really don’t want to. They are slow as…
Sounds like you just went too far to early in shoes with much less toe/heel drop. Less heel drop = more extension of your calf muscle. If you’re accustomed to a different position the muscle won’t be adapted for this and you should ease into it to avoid injury. This, in my opinion, was the biggest problem for minimalist running shoes - people switching without considering the implications.
I started using minimalist running shoes several years ago and went from shoes with 10-12mm of drop and serious cushioning to zero drop and zero cushioning. I did take the transition period cautiously, starting by running just 400m and working up slowly to 10km+ over a period of a few months. Even so, I had quite a bit of calf tightness and soreness similar to what you describe though I never got anything I’d consider an injury. Thankfully I stuck with it and now run all distances, including IM marathon in zero drop minimalist shoes, more comfortably than I ever did before. I would think your calves will need several days to recover so the weekend race could be an issue, hopefully not.
Don’t let this put you off the racing flats. Just give it a little time to get used to them. I wouldn’t think you’ll need months as drastic a change as I described, but jumping straight in at a 10km training run is not wise.
Good luck!
P.S. The D in DOMs is Delayed. So if it’s immediate, it’s not DOMs!
However the adaptation discomfort I described above seemed to come on during or immediately after the run as tightness which remained for some time afterwards and seemed to mutate into typical DOMs over the following 48hrs. IIRC stretching the calf and achilles during and after the run seemed to help.
What is the heel-to drop on your usual shoes compared to your flats? Lots of posts and information about the ‘perils’ of too rapidly moving to flats.
I use a variety of shoes:
normal training shoes - Nike Pegasus (heel drop 10mm), long - Hoka Stinson, although I could still use my pegs if I wanted to
racing - normally Asics Noosa heel drop 10mm
The racing flats I just bought are Asics Hyper Speed (heel drop around 6mm). They are probably only going to be good for 5/10km races sprints/ODs. Was hoping to use them in 70.3s, but obviously that’s not a good idea at this moment in time.
I’m definitely not racing in the hyper speeds this weekend. Prefer to race in my Noosas, but I’m now wondering if I should go for the Hokas which I really don’t want to. They are slow as…
Sounds like you just went too far to early in shoes with much less toe/heel drop. Less heel drop = more extension of your calf muscle. If you’re accustomed to a different position the muscle won’t be adapted for this and you should ease into it to avoid injury. This, in my opinion, was the biggest problem for minimalist running shoes - people switching without considering the implications.
I started using minimalist running shoes several years ago and went from shoes with 10-12mm of drop and serious cushioning to zero drop and zero cushioning. I did take the transition period cautiously, starting by running just 400m and working up slowly to 10km+ over a period of a few months. Even so, I had quite a bit of calf tightness and soreness similar to what you describe though I never got anything I’d consider an injury. Thankfully I stuck with it and now run all distances, including IM marathon in zero drop minimalist shoes, more comfortably than I ever did before. I would think your calves will need several days to recover so the weekend race could be an issue, hopefully not.
Don’t let this put you off the racing flats. Just give it a little time to get used to them. I wouldn’t think you’ll need months as drastic a change as I described, but jumping straight in at a 10km training run is not wise.
Good luck!
P.S. The D in DOMs is Delayed. So if it’s immediate, it’s not DOMs!
However the adaptation discomfort I described above seemed to come on during or immediately after the run as tightness which remained for some time afterwards and seemed to mutate into typical DOMs over the following 48hrs. IIRC stretching the calf and achilles during and after the run seemed to help.
Great thanks for the reply. They are feeling a lot better today, should be OK to race tomorrow hopefully!
