PJ Media: Soreness is Not Your Friend

[Mark Rippetoe]

http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2014/06...ting-stronger/

[Corrie]

Good article.

I've wanted to get a prowler for a while but don't have many options for using it.
Recently though, I've found that riding my bike has done wonders for aiding my recovery and produces very little soreness (sometimes even 'curing' the soreness it seems). My guess was that it was because it's similar to the prowler with a lot of concentric work and very little eccencentric (I'm not clipping in, just basic pedals)

It was nice to see this more or less confirmed by the article. I think cycling can be a good compliment to lifting if done in moderation.

It's funny to try and explain the concept of soreness to people though. It's become ingrained in people that you need to confuse the muscles and the soreness is some sort of proof that they're doing this. When I explain that you can train hard and never got sore, and it's a great thing, they never believe it until they try it.

[Jonathon Sullivan]

Schoenfeld reviewed the lit on this topic in 2013. Soreness is just too crude a metric, and too prone to misuse, to be useful for real training progress.

[drcube]

Every time I have the misfortune of significant DOMS, it is accompanied by a low grade fever, sore throat, headache and a general "sick" feeling. "Essentially the same thing as a disease" is exactly how I'd describe it. I can't imagine feeling that way for extended periods of time.

[greywar]

Not equating soreness with effective training has been one of my worst psychological hurdles to get over. Keeping a good workout log helps but it is hard to give numbers primacy over the feelings your body feedsback to you all day after working out.

[Kyle Schuant]

Your body will sometimes ask you to go harder or go easier than it needs to. This is why we use a Plan. Really lifters should be programmed in BASIC

LET WEIGHT = 45
INPUT "REPS DONE?"; REPS
IF REPS = 5 THEN WEIGHT = WEIGHT +5
ELSE WEIGHT = WEIGHT

[JohnnyPockets]

Good stuff. I shared on FB for my bro-friends.

[thedude47111]

Your body will sometimes ask you to go harder or go easier than it needs to. This is why we use a Plan. Really lifters should be programmed in BASIC

LET WEIGHT = 45
INPUT "REPS DONE?"; REPS
IF REPS = 5 THEN WEIGHT = WEIGHT +5
ELSE WEIGHT = WEIGHT

Do you mean only beginners? If not, what do you make of Mike Tuchscherer's system of listening to your body?

[davidbo]

Very interesting article.

But maybe I need to change some things? I'm in the "older" category at 53.

I squat every 6 or 7 days and on squat day it’s all I do. Same with pulls, presses (HIIT on press day), and bench (chins on bench day). So I work through the days of the week by lift, mon - squat, tue - rest, wed - press, thu - pulls, fri - rest, sat - bench, … repeat. Sometimes I throw in an extra day of rest.

Each workout takes about 45 minutes because I need to warm up and for time between sets.

I’m always sore after every workout except press day. I tried squatting more frequently but just got burned out and stalled. So this one day a week thing is resulting in slow progress (~5 lbs every 4-5 weeks) but I’m always sore somewhere.

Not sure what to do to eliminate soreness and still make progress. Do each lift more frequently with less weight and volume to avoid burnout?

[Mark Rippetoe]

You don't need to eliminate the soreness.

Delayed-Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) is a phenomenon associated with certain types of muscular work. It can occur as the result of exercise or manual labor, and is a perfectly natural consequence of unaccustomed physical exertion.

You just need to fix things up so that the soreness is not overwhelming and constant.