FACT OR MYTH: SORENESS MEANS YOU HAD AN EFFECTIVE WORKOUT-MUSCLES MUST HAVE 48 HOURS TO RECOVER

FACT OR MYTH?

DELAYED ONSET MUSCLE SORENESS (DOMS) MEANS YOU HAD AN EFFECTIVE WORKOUT

The misconception that you must experience muscle soreness to have an effective workout comes from the fact that your muscles grow because the workout inflicts micro-tears in the muscle fibers forcing them to repair. Another factor that contributes to the assumption you had an effective workout is the fact that the muscles feel tighter and harder. Maybe even a little larger.

Sounds logical, right?

Sorry. It’s not that simple. There has been no direct relationship found between muscle soreness and hypertrophy. The repair of muscle damage is only one of the reasons your workout makes muscle grow. And the feeling of harder, slightly larger muscle is simply swelling and is going to go away in a couple of days.

As your training age (how long you’ve been training) increases you’ll experience less and less muscle soreness. Your muscles adapt, they recover faster and your pain threshold increases. If you do get extremely sore after every workout there’s a chance you may have an electrolyte deficiency, a nutrition problem or you’re not getting enough sleep or recovery time.

DOMS may still occur if you make major changes in you program or take more than a couple of weeks off from your workouts. But major soreness or lack of soreness doesn’t mean one workout is any better or worse-just different.

Being sore is not a bad thing but don’t expect it all the time. Not being sore doesn’t mean your workout was ineffective.

MUSCLE SORENESS MEANS YOU HAD AN EFFECTIVE WORKOUT-MYTH

There is no proven relationship between muscle soreness and muscle growth

FACT OR MYTH?

MUSCLES MUST HAVE 48 TO 72 HOURS OF REST BETWEEN WORKOUTS

If you are a beginner or if you have reached an age where you naturally require more recovery time this may be a valid rule to follow and not concentrate on the same muscle group 2 days in a row. Only you can make that determination.

But the insinuation that you will “over train” the muscle is overblown. While it is prudent to give a muscle 48 hours to recover if it is worked to its absolute limit it is also prudent to not to train to absolute limits all the time.

In addition, all compound exercises, by definition, work several muscle groups and joints simultaneously. Dead lifts, for example, are going to work forearms, upper back, hamstrings, quads, core and traps at the same time. All compound pushing exercises such as the bench press are going to work anterior deltoids, triceps and pecs.

As you progress your body will adapt to almost any frequency within reason.

In fact, increasing the frequency of workouts for a particular muscle group is one of the most effective methods of progression.( 2x per week instead of 1x, for example)  Working some muscles every day can even become necessary for some hard to train muscles. Calves and Traps come to mind.

MUSCLES MUST HAVE 48 TO 72 HOURS OF REST BETWEEN WORKOUTS- MYTH