I decided to try out a sort of full body workout targeting my chest and back after my leg workouts last week. I did the same workouts i do on my chest/back and leg days, but for some reason i was not sore at all so i tried it again in the same week and same thing. I’m shocked because my legs and core would be extremely sore after my leg workouts. After doing some research i found out that lactic acid build up was one of the culprits of doms pain, and my theory is that transitioning from lower body to upper body in the same workout might actually lower the lactic acid in the legs and delaying the pain.
Is there any weight to this theory, do you do full body workouts or do you prefer to give your lower body its own day and what pain/soreness do you feel if any after targeting your lower body.
Having done both full body and split workouts, I’ve never felt a difference in DOMS between the two, and this isn’t something I’ve ever heard of either.
Some possible explanations I can think of:
- Active recovery: If the additional exercises you added to that session involved your legs and core but to a lesser extent (e.g. anything ranging from bench press leg drive to simply pacing around more between sets), it could help with recovery and reduce soreness.
- DOMS goes down as you get used to a workout. Since you had DOMS at all to begin with, I would guess you’ve just recently started this particular leg workout. It could just be a coincidence that your body became sufficiently accustomed to it at the same time that you decided to switch to full body. You could try doing just the leg workout next time to see if this is the case.
Lactic acid build up and DOMS are not correlated. This is a myth that has been debunked. As for why your legs were not sore, I don’t know what could cause that if you did the same amount of the same exercises at the same intensity as usual.