Incidence of delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS)

People participate in sport for various reasons. For the school going age sport is for physical development whilst for post school age sport is for reward, prestige, leisure and health. In pursuit of this undertaking, many have experienced muscle pain during and immediately following the exercise period (acute soreness). Pain may also be experienced a day or two days after the exercise session has ended (delayed onset muscle soreness DOMS). DOMS may discourage athletes from continuing exercise or quitting sport altogether. In this book, an experiment was carried out with college basketball players to provide the Zimbabwean experience with DOMS. Findings revealed the prevalence of DOMS despite the knowledge provided in the existing literature on sport medicine to deal with this phenomenon. This study is a wake- up call to the government, clubs, schools, colleges, and the elite athlete to react proactively in order to sustain sport interest at all levels.