Muscle Soreness

[BaKoBoY20]

I have read so many posts on here that being sore the next day, or few days after training doesn't prove that you have had a good workout or are trainging right. ANd that getting good pumps and muscle fatigue when you train isn't always the best thing for growth and strenght. I always thought that if you were sore after you trained, then you had trained hard and done something right. Can someone explain this to me?

 

[blut wump]

Getting a muscle sore typically means little more than that you worked it in some way that it was not accustomed to. If you make a muscle excessively sore then you may find that you need to leave quite a few days before you can work it again due to the discomfort. Be assured that you can grow and get stronger without muscle soreness. Many of us on here have worked muscle groups three or more times per week, grown and strengthened, without any muscle discomfort.

Typically when working a muscle over an extended period you want to stress it ever more as time passes. Thus, over time, the body is forced to adapt to an increasing load. If you think about it in those terms, the idea of hitting a muscle in ways it is unaccustomed to would be a bad thing, you try to hit it in ways it is accustomed to but with greater load/resistance. As such, generally, soreness is something you don't experience on a long-term program.

 

[RipStone]

^^^good info.

I will also add that muscle soreness(DOMS) hasd a lot to do with lactic acid. When you train a muscle too failure or do higer rep work, lactic acid is gonna be released....its what makes you feel that "burn" that so many BBers rave about, hehe. But, lactic acid actually makes it harder for your body to recover(what blut wump was eluding to). Moreover, during your workout, your next set is gonna be compromised cus lactic acid makes you weaker.

The key is training 1-2 reps short of failure and selecting the loads you use wisely.

 

[djeclipse]

What about definition? Everything you say is good for size and strength right? But if you want definition don't you want to go to failure and get that "pump"?

 

[Cynical Simian]

What about definition? Everything you say is good for size and strength right? But if you want definition don't you want to go to failure and get that "pump"?

No. Pump is just a temporary increase in blood flow and is absolutely meaningless in terms of strength/size gains (or even appearance beyond a few minutes after your workout). Adding muscle (which, big surprise, correlates rather well with increasing strength) is what's ultimately going to give you "definition", not wasting a bunch of money on pump products or compormising your workouts by constatly doing high reps to failure just so you can see some veins in your arm for a couple of minutes.

 

[djeclipse]

No. Pump is just a temporary increase in blood flow and is absolutely meaningless in terms of strength/size gains (or even appearance beyond a few minutes after your workout). Adding muscle (which, big surprise, correlates rather well with increasing strength) is what's ultimately going to give you "definition", not wasting a bunch of money on pump products or compormising your workouts by constatly doing high reps to failure just so you can see some veins in your arm for a couple of minutes.

Thank you for your reply.

Please excuse my ignorance but if what you say was the case why is it that a lot of powerlifters (who obviously have a lot of strength and muscle) not have definition and often look almost "chubby" for lack of a better word.

 

[RipStone]

Thank you for your reply.

Please excuse my ignorance but if what you say was the case why is it that a lot of powerlifters (who obviously have a lot of strength and muscle) not have definition and often look almost "chubby" for lack of a better word.

PLers care about moving as much weight as possible, not about how they look. Thus, most PLers are on constant bulking diets and some of their diets are not as clean as BBers. As a result, PLers are gonna store more fat than BBers.

Coveresly, BBers are worrying more about asethic appearnce so they generally do bulking and cutting cycles. On a bulking cycle a BBer gains a lot of muscle mass, but also gains some fat as well. Then to get rid of the fat they do a cutting cycle where they reduce calories and increase cardio. BBers dont really care as much as raw strength as PLers. So much so that when BBers are on stage for a contest & lookh their strongest(that is if you assocuate defintion, striations, viens, etc with strength) thet are actually their weakest as a result of pre-contest diets.

 

[Cynical Simian]

Thank you for your reply.

Please excuse my ignorance but if what you say was the case why is it that a lot of powerlifters (who obviously have a lot of strength and muscle) not have definition and often look almost "chubby" for lack of a better word.

You pretty much answered your own question: in addition to a lot of muscle, most powerlifters have a decent amount of bodyfat. This is a function of diet and, since powerlifting's focus is exclusively strength, a lack of cutting cycles and cardio, not the fact that they don't train to failure.

EDIT: Heh, looks like rip covered it pretty well while I was typing my reply.

 

[djeclipse]

Thanks again for your replies. So basically you're saying it's the diet and cardio that gets the body builders all cut and not the actual training to failure in the gym.

 

[blut wump]

If you look on the steroids forum, where many members are more concerned with looking great than being mighty, you'll find time and time again someone saying that it's 95% diet. I don't fully agree with the percentage but you get the idea. We all have abs, for example, but if you want to see them then you have to diet away the fat that covers them. The same applies to the rest of your muscles. If you want definition then you have to have low bodyfat.