StrikeBack
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RE: Is Soreness a Good Method for Judging Workout Effectiveness
Soreness is as reliable an indicator as sweating - i.e not at all. The dumb general population (esp women) tend to think that if they sweat a lot during a workout and get very sore afterwards, they're doing great. Usually it just means they sweat a lot and get sore, while their body composition and strength/fitness level go nowhere. This is why you see lots of fatties sitting in the sauna and doing weird useless pilates poses.
There are lots of things that cause soreness, and even sports science is only scratching the surface, not fully understanding it. Some things that cause soreness can make it a useless indicator for strength improvement or hypertrophy:
- Bad movement quality - moving poorly hurts the muscles more, but it doesn't mean you're getting better.
- Inactive / lagging muscle groups - this causes other muscle groups to pick up the slack, work too hard and get very sore, but again you're getting nowhere.
- Shock to the nervous system - if you're doing something very new and extreme, you can shock the CNS so much that you get this weird floating pain in the body (to explain it casually): one day it's here, the next day it's there with no indication that the painful area was actually overworked in anyway. In weird cases, you can work one arm really hard and the next day the *other* arm gets sore.
- The body getting too used to the stimulus: if you do something regularly enough (e.g squat everyday) your body gets used to it (like getting used to a bad smell) and you don't feel sore anymore. That doesn't mean the muscle fibers aren't damaged and getting repaired.
Rely on objective measures instead, like what you do in a real sport. Nobody says "I can run faster now because I'm more sore than usual after running". If you can lift more weights, more reps or more sets, you're getting stronger. If your DEXA scan tells you your lean body mass has increased, you're getting bigger (or use measuring tapes if you want a simpler method).
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10-31-2014 08:39 PM |
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Griprip08
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RE: Is Soreness a Good Method for Judging Workout Effectiveness
I think most are just misinterpreting what you are trying to ask, or maybe I am.
Regardless, my only immediate indicator that I had a great workout, or gave it all I could, is how sore I am the next day. I literally have this down to the point where I know if I skip an exercise, or a set, the confirming evidence of it being a shitty workout will be the lack of soreness I feel for that specific set/area.
Quote:Quote:Switch Wrote:
So right now I judge whether or not I got a good workout in by how sore I am in the days following a workout. Is soreness a good indicator of growth in the muscle and ability to do more weight/reps the next workout?
No.
If I said to you "prove to me you're getting stronger", is you saying "well, my muscles hurt after a workout" going to convince anyone?
- A measuring tape and time are a good indicator of growth in the muscle.
- Increasing the weight/reps in your current workout is a good indicator of your ability to do more weight/reps the next workout.
This ^. Notice he said "no" to the bold terms/phrases. Everything mentioned here is indeed the closest thing you will get to facts, however I would throw you a curve-ball and tell you that you can still use the fact that you are sore, to assure you aren't just another ape dangling from the monkey bars when you go the gym.
If I'm not sore, I didn't work hard enough (or I could have worked harder), it's that simple. In other words, if on heavy leg day you need to "wait a minute" before you attempt to walk out to your car, your doing it right. If you fuck it up all up and fast for 3 days and eat nothing but water and oxygen, you'll still be sore (for probably longer) but you'll remain 5'10" 150lbs. until you're 40.
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11-05-2014 09:59 PM |
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Griprip08
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RE: Is Soreness a Good Method for Judging Workout Effectiveness
(11-08-2014 06:33 PM)StrikeBack Wrote: Quote:Regardless, my only immediate indicator that I had a great workout, or gave it all I could, is how sore I am the next day.
That's one absurd idea yet so popular.
Why can't that immediate indicator be your actual performance in that workout? More immediate than DOMS, more objective, more scientific than "how you feel".
Because if you know your actual performance you don't need indicators that take a day to surface. Also, I never said this is the only way I know I did well at the gym. This compliments things like keeping track of progress and eating well, not to mention looking at your self in the mirror.
The point that's trying to be made here is, you can ascertain a great deal of information from how you feel. This is both evident during and right after your workout, and obvious affects, a day later, being the soreness.
Understand that it's a correlation, and a very strong one at that. Anyone can look at numbers and do that math week to week, but I'd rather not feel like a complete piece of shit and also take 20 years to gain 5lbs. of muscle. Listen to your body, that's the message.
(This post was last modified: 11-09-2014 05:31 AM by Griprip08.)
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11-09-2014 05:31 AM |
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obrero
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RE: Is Soreness a Good Method for Judging Workout Effectiveness
A muscle becomes sore as a result of micro-tears in the individual contractile cells that result from large amounts of force being placed upon it. They tear and repair themselves after being overloaded, ex. when there is a greater amount of force placed upon it.
Eccentric movement (when your muscle lengthens under tension; think the down part of a pullup, pushup or squat) can provide much more force than concentric movement (the up part) can because obviously when you cant do anymore pushups, you will still be able to lower yourself to the ground in a controlled fashion.
Therefore, if the movement you are doing has momentum involved in the eccentric portion (a kipping pull up) that muscle is having much more force exerted upon it in the eccentric phase to slow down your momentum and change the direction of your weight than just the standard pull up would. That will make you sore.
If you deadlift and drop the bar to the floor after standing up all the way, you've only done the concentric part of the movement. This is a way to get in a lot of volume without become sore. Lowering your deadlifts slowly will make you sore without nearly as much volume.
All this said, does using the eccentric portion of a lift make you stronger or bigger than doing more volume of only a concentric movement? I doubt it.
Case study: Crossfitter vs. Guy who does regular pullups.
Crossfitter cant do nearly as many strict pullups because he practices kipping pullups, even though they make him really sore because of a huge amount momentum involved in the eccentric swing down.
Crossfitter will not be able to do a weighted pullup with as much weight because he isn't practicing the concentric part of the movement, instead relying on a huge eccentric contraction to bounce his chin back over the bar.
Soreness does not equal gains, however sometimes gains will equal soreness.
(This post was last modified: 11-09-2014 12:42 PM by obrero.)
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11-09-2014 12:39 PM |
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