Are your muscles meant to be sore?

lisajane

Joined a gym 2 weeks ago to lose weight. My brother told me that when ur lifting weights your muscles are meant to be sore afterwards. When i first started 2 weeks ago, they were sore but not now. But then i read in a book that ur meant to lift the weight if u find it difficult to finish the last set. And thats what im doing but my muscles aren't even sore. Should they be?

tribulus

Please don't judge your progress by your muscle soreness.

Have you lost and are continuing to lose fat? Are you enjoying yourself? Do you feel stronger, do you have more energy, do you feel better?.....

It's not important. I rarely get DOMS(the muscle soreness after your training) but I've progressed well in the last few months.

lisajane

i lost a small bit of weight but im not sure if thats fat.

justsomebloke

lisajane wrote:

i lost a small bit of weight but im not sure if thats fat.

well if you are lifting for the first time it is most likely fat as chances are that by lifting weights you are at the least helping to maintain your lean body mass, however as you are new to weights chances are that you have managed to probably add a bit of lean body mass and cause this is heavier then fat you probably have lost more fat then the scales say. But as trib said if you are pushing yourself and enjoying it don't worry to much about it

lizzyvera

What if your muscles are sore a lot? My job is physical labour and an awful lot of the time I'm sore and it feels a bit better once I start digging those stupid ditches again...

rubadub

lisajane wrote:

Joined a gym 2 weeks ago to lose weight. My brother told me that when ur lifting weights your muscles are meant to be sore afterwards. When i first started 2 weeks ago, they were sore but not now. But then i read in a book that ur meant to lift the weight if u find it difficult to finish the last set. And thats what im doing but my muscles aren't even sore. Should they be?

Sounds perfectly normal. Mine were sore the next day for the first month or so. Then it goes unless you start training new muscles, or even alter your current technique. I only started going really deep on squats recently and was sore for days after, now I am used to it. Same with triceps, stopped working them directly for ages and then was sore again after.

Hanley

lizzyvera wrote:

What if your muscles are sore a lot? My job is physical labour and an awful lot of the time I'm sore and it feels a bit better once I start digging those stupid ditches again...

Sore muscles = under recovery on a VERY basic level.


The digging helps because it gets blood flowing around your body and loosens you up.

Sangre

Starting off you'll be sore but that will go as you adapt to the new muscle movements. Then you'll occassionally get muscle soreness depending on various things e.g. new technique/exercise/no recovery.

g-punkteffekt

I don't know where you're going with the only getting DOMS when you start out thing...
I've been squatting for years now and still have to go through hell for 2 days a week, unable to walk up stairs without whincing etc. I also get it bad in my lats after a good back session. Sure people don't squat heavy and not get pain???

indough

I'm always sore the day after a good workout. If i'm not then I feel as though i've accomplished nothing. No pain no gain after all. But then i'm lookig to gain weight

Hanley

I'm squatting 4x a week for 4x9, 5x7, 7x5 and 10x3 all with 80+% and not getting doms.

cowzerp

If your body is used to your workout you wont get sore, but if you shake it up a bit you will get more out of your training, also-pain does not mean you trained well either...

JayRoc

Hanley wrote:

I'm squatting 4x a week for 4x9, 5x7, 7x5 and 10x3 all with 80+% and not getting doms.

Heh heh, someone else doing Smolov that knows my pain.
I've experienced no DOMS myself off this, but I rarely do when training like that.

More classic BB-type volume tends to give people worse DOMS in my experience. Certainly does for me- after almost 10 years I can still hardly walk after 20-rep squats or 10x10's.

Hanley

JayRoc wrote:

Heh heh, someone else doing Smolov that knows my pain.
I've experienced no DOMS myself off this, but I rarely do when training like that.

More classic BB-type volume tends to give people worse DOMS in my experience. Certainly does for me- after almost 10 years I can still hardly walk after 20-rep squats or 10x10's.

Indeed. I can train 4x a week like that but once I don't go to failure or attempt forced reps I remain DOMS free.

The people who I see getting DOMS seem to be the ones doing high reps, like 10+. It's perfectly normal to work in the 80-95% range for extended periods of time, get stronger, grow bigger and remain DOMS free.

The people who think you need to hurt the day after to be progressing are causing themselves unneccessary hardship imo.