D.O.M.S.

Today being the day that would have been the day after the first day of Fantasy Bob's cricket season.  As such, it would generally be the day when he is most exposed to DOMS - delayed onset muscle soreness.  This can be hard to differentiate from all the other soreness that FB experiences, but it is a  recognised physiological condition which happens 6-8 hours after exercise and persists for 24-48 hours. 

FB thought he would find out more.  He pinged the Wikipedia article.  He was told in authoritative terms that DOMS is caused by eccentric exercise.  This seemed unduly personal.  He admits his bowling action may not remind many of Denis Lillee, but it is surely too much to label it eccentric.  He was about to dash off a letter to the editor when he read further - eccentric apparently refers to lengthening contractions of the muscle as opposed to isometric (static) or concentric exercise which cause less and no DOMS respectively.

FB read further and was told that delayed onset muscle soreness is not completely understood, but is thought to be a result of microtrauma - mechanical damage at a very small scale – to the muscles being exercised.  The thought is that in repairing itself from this damage, the muscle enlarges and becomes stronger.  

This led FB to reflect.  In recent seasons there have been many matches where FB has been required neither to bat nor bowl, such is the richness of resource marshalled under his captaincy (where the word eccentric may appropriately be deployed).  But DOMS still happens. So he is wondering where all this elongation of his muscles might be occuring.  By contrast, he can see that there is quite a lot of static or isometric exercise involved  - FB will remain static for long periods in the field, so much so that several times a season his team mates wonder whether artificial resuscitation will be necessary.  He supposes also that he does quite a lot of concentric exercise, since many matches seem to involve going round in circles, although this is mostly in conversation with his teammates.  Microtrauma he does not understand, since every dropped catch is a major trauma.

So he is really struggling to understand why he should experience DOMS as he does.  But slowly it dawns on him. His one contribution to the match is the toss.  Flicking the coin up with his thumb is certainly eccentric exercise, involving as it does the explosive elongation of that muscle group.  A microtrauma if ever the was (particularly if the toss is lost).  FB assumes that by some process yet to be understood by the medics, the microtrauma then spreads from the thumb to every other muscle group.  However, the good news is that he will be stronger for next week's toss.  And by the end of the season he is a veritable Schwarzenegger of tossing.