DOMS is the English acronym of " Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness ", or "delayed onset muscle soreness". These are not pains caused by the presence of muscular lactic acid which, on average, is metabolized within a few hours after the end of the physical exercise, but by micro lacerations of the tissues which trigger a real (albeit modest) inflammatory reaction.
The DOMS arise after physical exercise, whatever it may be, as long as it is capable of subjecting the districts to an effort sufficiently intense to provoke them (subjective parameter).
Being averagely "poorly tolerated" (except for the so-called "fanatics", who associate them with effective training), many sportsmen try to prevent them, alleviate them or treat them.
An experimental update of 2011 entitled " Stretching to prevent or reduce muscle soreness after exercise " (referring to a 2007 work by Cochrane) sought the correlation between stretching before and after training and the onset of DOMS.
The sources were analyzed: "Cochrane Bone, Joint and Muscle Trauma Group Specialized Register" (August 10, 2009), "Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials" (2010, issue 1), "MEDLINE" (1966 to 8th February 2010), "EMBASE" (1988 to 8th February 2010), "CINAHL" (1982 to 23rd February 2010), "SPORTDiscus" (1949 to 8th February 2010), "PEDro" (to 15th February 2010) and the bibliographic list of the aforementioned articles.
All randomized or quasi-randomized studies referring to any pre- or post-exercise stretching technique aimed at preventing or treating the onset of DOMS are included in the work. The stretching techniques were applied just before and / or immediately after physical exercise, and the muscle pain parameter was evaluated.
The risk of distortion was assessed using the tool "The Cochrane Collaboration's - Risk of bias", while the quality of the evidence by means of the "GRADE". The eventual effects of stretching have been contextualized in a common 100-point scale. The results were then processed by means of a meta-analysis.
The review examined 12 studies, of which two were new. One consists of extensive research, based on 2, 377 participants, 1, 220 of whom were assigned to stretching. The other 11 studies were small, with a number of participants subjected to stretching between 10 and 30. Ten studies were performed in the laboratory and the other two in the field. All studies were exposed to a moderate or high risk of distortion. The quality of the evidence was low or moderate. A high degree of agreement between the results of the various studies was observed.
The estimate showed that pre-exercise stretching on average reduced the DOMS of the day following the exercise by half a point on a scale of 100 points (3 studies).
Post-exercise stretching, on the other hand, reduces DOMS on the following day by one point on a 100-point scale (4 studies). Similar effects have been observed from half a day to three days after exercise.
Finally, a large study showed that stretching before and after exercise reduces DOMS on average for a period of a week by four points on a 100-point scale. This effect, although statistically significant, is not very relevant.
Evidence from randomized trials suggests that stretching, if done before, after, or both before and after exercise, does not result in a clinically important reduction of DOMS in a population of healthy adult subjects.
