Treatment
The soreness disappears in about 72 hours after appearing. If treatment is desired, any measure that increases blood flow to the muscle, such as low-intensity work, massage, hot baths, or a sauna visit may help somewhat.[18] Immersion in cool or icy water, an occasionally recommended remedy, was found to be ineffective in alleviating DOMS in one 2011 study,[25] but effective in another.[26]
Counterintuitively, continued exercise may temporarily suppress the soreness. Exercise increases pain thresholds and pain tolerance. This effect, called exercise-induced analgesia, is known to occur in endurance training (running, cycling, swimming), but little is known about whether it also occurs in resistance training. There are claims in the literature that exercising sore muscles appears to be the best way to reduce or eliminate the soreness, but this has not yet been systematically investigated.