Bring on the DOM’s. Is muscle soreness is good and bad?
No pain, No Gain
Muscle soreness after a good hard workout can feel good, but too much soreness can cause a little concern to go along with the pain. We all tend to live by the motto “no pain no gain”
However, Lyle Mcdonald from Body Recomposition teaches us soreness is not the best indicator for muscle growth.
Muscle Soreness, a sign to to rethink your training plan?
The pain you feel after a few days after a workout, delayed onset muscle soreness or DOMS for short, may not be the magical sign of growth that you had hoped for.
We relish in the pain thinking our muscles will grow but according to Body Recomposition they give the following food for thought:
Four things to think about:
1. DOMS is usually the worst at the beginning of the training cycle, especially with new movements but visible and increased growth usually occurs at the end of the cycle when DOMS no longer happens.
2. Some muscles, the deltoids are one example, very rarely get sore for some reason, but they grow just fine. DOMS is not required.
3. People who train very infrequently such as a bodypart once/week often report amazing DOMS. But many of them don’t grow well.
4. People who train somewhat more frequently (i.e. 2-3 times/week per muscle group) always report LESS DOMS but MORE growth.
Basically, the above seems to indicate that not only is DOMS not associated with growth, but in most cases you get better growth with less
So it seems DOMS isn’t the best indicator of muscle damage
Strength coach Greg Nuckols suggests it is best to avoid too much muscle damage in order to train with higher frequency. Now and then it may be helpful to push yourself to the limits and then have adequate rest. Nevertheless, it should not impact on your ability to do the following workout.