Muscle Soreness

No pain, no gain? Not necessarily.

Muscle soreness is often associated with great workouts, or so we think. There are times when you wake up and can really feel that muscle soreness from your intense workout session the day before. This often leads individuals to conclude that their workout was perfectly executed and efficient. Although resistance training and other weight-bearing activities sometimes do lead to muscle soreness, a lack of soreness doesn’t necessarily mean you wasted your time during that workout. I often recommend not judging a workout and its effectiveness by how sore you are the next day. Some of the best workouts of my life did not produce soreness the day after.

Exercisers beginning a new workout regime often struggle the first few weeks with muscle soreness after almost every workout. This is caused by the new stimulus the workouts are providing, which breaks the muscle fibers down and causes muscle soreness to last for one to three days. This is completely normal

ALTHOUGH RESISTANCE TRAINING AND OTHER WEIGHT-BEARING ACTIVITIES SOMETIMES DO

LEAD TO MUSCLE SORENESS, A LACK OF SORENESS DOESN’T ALWAYS MEAN YOU WASTED YOUR TIME DURING THAT WORKOUT.

as your body adjusts to the new stimulus. The human body is so incredibly good at adapting to new stimuli that, after some time, the soreness will not always be present after really great workout sessions. Do not be discouraged! Simply put, sometimes you will get sore and sometimes you will not.

During the first few weeks of a new workout program, the majority of your strength gains will come from the muscles learning the biomechanics of the movements you are doing and improving the motor unit recruitment patterns within the muscles, leading to better efficiency of the movements. There is not necessarily a huge increase in the actual change of the muscle itself the first few weeks. Those physical changes come later down the road, after the movements are perfected.

Make sure you are working out safely and intensely, and remember to enjoy yourself. It’s the quality of the workout and not muscle soreness afterward that determines whether you are perfectly on track for optimum health and wellness.