romore

if your muscles have stopped aching from a weights session does that mean they are fully rested and can be trained again?

also does muscle soreness = that you have trained the muscle sufficiently,

and no muscle soreness = you have not?

sorry if these questions have previously been answered somewhere but i could not find anything.

cheers for your time, Rob.

Wee G

Strength athletes and bodybuilders often equate delayed onset muscular soreness with progress in strength or muscle hypertrophy. This equation does not hold true, the real relationship between training, soreness and progress is as follows:

Training can provide a stimulus for progress.

Training can induce Delayed Onset Muscular Soreness (DOMS).

Different training means have different effects on short and long term training effects.

Soreness does not equal progress.

Progress is not reliant upon soreness.


Soreness and progress can coincide, but there is not a causal relationship between them. Sometimes the training means that induce soreness also happen to be the same ones that provide a stimulus for progress in strength at a particular time. Alas, this is not always the case or training would be a simple case of making yourself sore, waiting for the soreness to go away, and then making yourself sore again. This “single factor” approach to progression fails to take in to account that although maximal efforts are not possible during recovery periods, sub-maximal efforts are possible and can play a useful part in enhancing progress further still.
Training means that are well known for inducing soreness include emphasised eccentric (negative) movements, sudden increases in training volume of a given body part or lift and the introduction of a novel exercise that you have not performed for a long period of time. Obviously at some point in an athletes training negative emphasis movements, increases in training volume and the use of novel stimuli can all play a part in generating renewed progress, but the key is to utilise these means at the correct time and in the correct context. Merely using them to generate DOMS is pointless.


The problem with training means that are designed to cause soreness is simply that they can hinder further training in the short term and that eventually hinders long term progress in strength. Admittedly this is more prevalent in beginning or intermediate athletes, most Elite / sub-elite athletes are conditioned to training despite muscular soreness and fatigue although this rarely comes from deliberate attempts to cause DOMS.
I feel the same way about training means that are deliberately designed to cause exhaustion / fatigue (eg training to failure, forced reps, drop sets etc).


These means can be used effectively from time to time and are perhaps worthwhile when working with low loading schedules / low training frequencies but if these means substantially reduce the athletes training frequency then the possible benefits are often negated. There is an old axiom that says “You can train hard or you can train long...but you can’t train hard for long” that is often used to promote so called “High Intensity Training (HIT)”. A more useful axiom would be “You can train to create soreness and fatigue, or you can train often, but you can’t train to create soreness and fatigue often”. Both methodologies are of value, at the correct time and in the correct context, but this is a classic example of the conflict between maximising training frequency and fatigue caused by training reducing training frequency. Why is it that most athletes, when given the choice, will choose to utilise means that enforce low training volumes and frequencies by creating large amounts of fatigue and soreness?


So, if I am saying we shouldn’t train with the goal of creating soreness then why do my training programs often include loading schedules that leave the athlete with residual fatigue? This is typically due to high frequency training schedules that are NOT utilised throughout the training year but only at specific times. The fatigue is due to the volume of loading and the frequency of training, not due to the use of training techniques designed to maximise fatigue / DOMS. These high frequency schedules are put in place to take advantage of delayed transmutation. This is a complicated sounding but really dead simple phenomenon whereby loading schedules that do not allow full recovery in the short term can create a large training effect in the long term.

Again there is a fine balance between over reaching caused by high training volume or frequency and overtraining. An athlete who attempts to make use of training means that deliberately cause soreness during a high loading cycle will render himself unable to complete the cycle due to the severity of soreness and fatigue and will also end up overtrained. It is important to note that overtraining is not simply feeling tired but a systemic “illness” that takes many months to recover from.


This is why so many athletes (especially bodybuilders) use low training frequencies that would be regarded as “maintenance schedules” in most strength training circles. They simply cannot train very often as the fatigue and DOMS caused by their training methodologies prevents them from training the same body part for several days after a training session without overtraining.This would be worthwhile if the resulting soreness and fatigue was coincident with a dramatic level of progress in size or strength but oftentimes it is not. Often, more progress would be made in strength and hypertrophy by adopting more frequent training schedules with less training to the point of fatigue, no training to “failure” and no training with forced reps, slow negatives and other so called “intensity” techniques.

nibbsey

Good post, makes total sense.

romore

hi, i understand that if your a cyclist and you do a hard session where your muscles are sore for days afterwards it defeats the object if you cant do your cycleing training, have i got that right?

so do you have to train your muscle to failure every time to get them to grow?, if this is the case then muscle soreness is unavoidable surely?

sorry to sound thick people but i wanna get this right this time.

cheers for the replys, Rob.

Wee G

"hi, i understand that if your a cyclist and you do a hard session where your muscles are sore for days afterwards it defeats the object if you cant do your cycleing training, have i got that right?"


Yes. Also true for any other sport, bodybuilding included.

"so do you have to train your muscle to failure every time to get them to grow?, if this is the case then muscle soreness is unavoidable surely?"

No you dont have to train to failure or anything like it to stimulate hypertrophy, or any other adaptation.

cheers,

G

romore

ok so how do you know if you have achieved anything in your work out if your not pushing yourself or your not sore the next day?

how do you know what intensity to lift at?

thanks for your help wee G

Wee G

"how do you know if you have achieved anything in your work out"

Because you are getting bigger ?

I know this is gonna sound odd mate but too many people seem to think the objective of a workout is to be sore the next day / scream a lot / go beyond failure and any other amount of tough guy bull****. The point of a workout is to grow bigger muscles. So how do you know you're progressing? You're getting bigger!

"how do you know what intensity to lift at?"

By systematically planning your training so you introduce increasing stimlus (be it %1RM, volume, density or whatever else) over time.

Cheers,

g

romore

does the same apply for strength training?

i did train for about 2 years about 3 years ago but all the info i got was from the same few people in the gym hence this all being new info to me.

so what would you recommend- training to 80 % of your max? would that be sufficient?

do you aim to not fail on every lift?

i'm after increased strength and size combined. and doing 10 -12 reps - three sets. but by the 9th rep on the third set i am failing should i be lowering the weight so i can complete the whole exercise.

sorry to go on mate.

warren_1987

good post mate, i never knew alot of that, reps

junior

Yes, good post, was thinking a bit about this aswell.

R3261

DOMS should not be a primary indicator of a well thought out programme

shauno

doms every now and agin isnt a bad thing though

__________________
Shauno destroyed the periodic table.

Because Shauno only recognises the element of surprise.

Wee G

"i'm after increased strength and size combined. and doing 10 -12 reps - three sets. but by the 9th rep on the third set i am failing should i be lowering the weight so i can complete the whole exercise."

OK,

Says just for example that the working weight is 100kg for those sets...it might look a little like this: (Sets to failure are marked with an (F)

100kg x 12 (F)
100kg x 11 (F)
100kg x 9 (F)

So, total load is 32 reps with 100kg = 3200kg. 3 times you hit failure.

Now, take 90kg instead...

90kg x 12,12,12(F)

Thats 3240Kg of total load (a little more load than the first example) with failure hit once. So, you have down more total load, with less fatigue.

OR

87.5Kg x 12,12,12,12 = 4200kg total load, with no failure at all.

Now, obviously if we take this to stupid levels we could do sets of 12 with 50kg all day long, but the load would be too low, so lets start at 87.5Kg for sets of 12, 87.5% of maximum effort. Start with 4 sets for 4200kg total load. Now add a set of 6 next time.

87.5Kg x 12,12,12,12,6 = 4725Kg total load.

Next time...

87.5Kg x 12,12,12,12,10 = 5075Kg total load

Next time...

87.5Kg x 12,12,12,12,12 = 5250Kg total load.

So, by dropping weight and adding volume you are now doing 5250Kg of load on that exercise per week, instead of the 3200kg we started with when benching 100kg for 12,11,9. You are also never failing or really straining, so you will feel fresh ansd recovered.

Next...start adding load, and dropping reps in order to avoid fatigue.

90Kg x 11,11,11,11,11 = 4950Kg

The increase in load used will present a stimulus for hypertrophy, whilst dropping the reps allows you to keep avoiding fatigue.

Next few weeks...add weight every week, so there is always an increase in load, which is a good stimulus for growth. Because your volume is all laid out and is dropping a little every week, and you are avoiding failure, you are still fresh with plenty in the tank.

92.5kg x 11,11,11,10,10 = 4902.5Kg
95kg x 10,10,10,10,10 = 4750kg
97.5kg x 9,9,9,9,9 = 4387.5Kg
100Kg x 8,8,8,8,8 = 4000Kg

Now, hold volume for as long as you can until you start missing a rep, then drop a set AND drop a rep or 2 off the rep target each time you miss...like this, starting with a rep target of 8 reps.

102.5kg x 8,8,8,8,8 = 4100kg
105Kg x 8,8,8,8,8
107.5 x 8,8,8,8,6(F) (hit failure so now need to drop rep target and drop a set)
110kg x 7,7,7,7
112.5kg x 7,7,7,5(F)
115kg x 6,6,6(F)
117.5 x 5,4(F), 4(F)
120kg x 3,3
122.5Kg x 3,2(F)

End cycle.

Thats 18 workouts in a row where you EITHER added to the total volume of work done, OR exposed your body to a new (heavier) load. 18 workouts in a row of progress, failing only as an unplanned consequence of adding load. Even then , whenever you DO fail, you are doing so against a backdrop of ever reducing volume, so giving yourself every chance to recover fully and hit the heavier load next week.

oK, schools out (j/k).


Warning - Sales pitch below...loook away if capitalism offends you...lol
------------------------
If you want 70 odd pages of the detail of planning a full training cycle using this kind of philosophy you should consider buying my book at

www.ultimate-hypertrophy.com
------------------------


cheers,

G

Kezz

how much short of failiure should you stop your working set then??

__________________

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Wee G

Hi Kezz,

see above post for one example of how to do it. It's not about stopping a set a rep or two short of failure all the time, it's about planning out a training cycle so that you make progress in volume / poundage whilst cutting out the unneccesary CNS fatigue of going to failure.

G