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Thread: Extreme muscle soreness from dairy?

  1. #1
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    Default Extreme muscle soreness from dairy?

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    Hey there,
    since this is a forum frequented by loads of people drinking a gallon of milk a day, maybe someone here has experienced this as well and some advice.

    Something about myself:

    37 year old male, been "exercising" in the gym for more than 20 years, started doing the program in December and loving it. I am 6'1" at a bodyweight of 215, bodyfat wild guesstimate would be around 20ish per cent. Currently eating about 3800 calories a day, 220-250 g of protein, 120-150 g of fat, rest is carbs. Watching my caloric and protein intake made me stumble upon a problem I have had years ago and which is now surfacing again:

    Back when I was around 18, I used mainly Quark (dry curd cheese) for protein intake, ate around a pound to a pound and a half a day (=100 g of protein for roughly $1). Even though I always trained the same things, not even progressively overloading, I was ALWAYS extremely sore for up to a week after workouts, sometimes to a point where walking hurt my pecs from the impact. This went on for years, until for unrelated reasons I was advised not to eat any dairy products for a few weeks. Never felt sore again afterwards and gradually introduced dairy products into my diet, just not as excessively.

    Fast forward to now: Since doing the program I am carefully watching my protein intake, when I am deficient in the evening (Wife changed her mind on what we have for dinner etc.), I often eat half a pound of greek yogurt with some oats, maybe a scoop of protein powder if needed. This has happened pretty often in the last weeks and now I am again starting to feel pretty sore after each workout and go into the next one while still being sore.

    Has this happened to anyone or to anyone you know? What might this be related to? I have no trouble with whey protein and was considering to get some casein for the evening, but I am not sure if that is actually what is causing it since greek yogurt and quark mainly contain casein.

    Any advice would be appreciated

    Thanks

  2. #2
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    Describe your training program before , during, and after the Quark protocol.

  3. #3
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    Thanks for getting back to me!

    Back in the "old days" there was not really a before, once I started to get "serious" about exercising, I started eating Quark. Back then I would do a two-day split, most of the time four days a week (A, B, rest, A, B, rest, rest) sometimes modifying the rest days if I was too sore

    A: Bench Press 185x6x3, Dumbbell Benchpress 115x8x3, Incline Dumbbell Benchpress 90x8x3, seated Dumbbell overhead press 70x8x3, lateral raises 12x3, dips to failure, triceps pushdowns 12x3
    B: Weighted Pullups 3x to failure, aiming for 8, Lat Pulldown 8x3, cable rows 8x3, curls 12x3, leg press 8x3, leg extension 12x3, back extension 12x3

    The weights indicated were my best numbers back then, but as I had no idea of overloading, they stayed that way for quite some time (until I effed up my shoulder by losing control of the dumbbell in the bench press), programming was the same after stopping to eat quark, just doing it 5 times a week because there was no soreness to recover from.


    These days I am just doing the NLP programming phase 2:
    Current numbers:
    Squat 300x5x3, Press 120x5x3, Deadlift 410x5
    Squat 5x3, Benchpress 230x5x3, Power Cleans 135x3x5

    Only difference between now (more soreness) and before eating greek yogurt more regularly (quark is not available here) in the programming: Starting to plateau on some lifts, which I feel like is too early in the NLP, but is probably form-related. So adding 5 lb per workout is not always happening right now.

    Other noteworthy things: Recovery might not always be the best, sharing a Queen bed with my wife and our 7 month old is not ideal. But recovery should be better now than it was a month or two ago, the little one sleeps much longer these days.
    Also it seems like the problem builds up over time: I never notice a difference if I occasionally eat greek yogurt, I might be mildly sore the next day, but not more than without it. But after at least 2-3 days in a row, soreness starts to set in and keeps getting worse with more consumption.

  4. #4
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    What are your macros working out to? Height/Weight? Where are you sore?

  5. #5
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    Feb 2021
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    height 6'1"
    BW 215 (up from 181 in November)
    Macros: 220-250 g of protein, 100-130 g of fat, rest (typically around 400 g) is carbs, aiming for 3800-4000 calories, might go up to 4500 on training days because I sometimes still feel extremely hungry after 4k calories on training days (not always though)

    Typically I am sore in every muscle that does major work in the lifts.
    Pecs or delts are typically only sore for a day
    traps, glutes, vastus lateralis and rectus femoris for two days
    vastus medialis, adductors and hamstrings are still sore today (last workout was three days ago)

  6. #6
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    How often are you actually performing each lift? By this I don't mean how often are you programmed to perform them but which days do you end up doing them?

  7. #7
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    Good point! I obviously try my best to TDFP, but sometimes life gets in the way (gym is closed on holidays, I can barely make time on days other than M,W,F to make up for that)

    Past 4 week according to my log:

    1st week of march: M-W-F, 2nd: W-F, 3rd: M-W-F, 4th: M-W, always alternating the days, starting with Sq, OHP, DL

    Haven't been since last Wednesday though (Friday was a holiday, Sunday we got rear-ended by a car and my wife can barely move the upper half of her upper body due to whiplash, so I can't leave her alone with the baby). Very unfortunate because I planned the last week of nutrition better so that I didn't consume any greek yogurt. But after a week of layoff I definitely expect some soreness after the workout, which I can hopefully squeeze in today.

  8. #8
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    Well guess what? If you have not trained in 6 days you are going to be, well, pretty damn sore afterwards.

  9. #9
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    Of course I am sore after what turned out to be seven days of no training, but the soreness really is nothing compared to what I had the previous weeks while training regularly and consuming my daily half pound of greek yogurt. It's so mild that I am sure it will be gone by tomorrow and have no impact on my training session then.
    I guess the best way to go forward from here is to just increase the amount of meat in the salad I have for lunch so the impact of last minute changes in dinner plans can be compensated by that rather than something I do not seem to tolerate on the long run.

  10. #10
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    starting strength coach development program
    If you have enough data points to suggest that there is a cause and effect relationship present in your life then by all means eat more meat. I have just never heard of such a thing, I'd imagine you'd be in the toilet more but don't how it would increase soreness.

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