Muscle Soreness & Recovery

No Soreness? No Problem. Why Your Workout Was Still Effective.

What Actually Is Muscle Soreness?

The soreness you may feel a day or two after your workout is DOMS—Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. DOMS is generally caused by new and/or intense exercise.

Why You Might Not Feel Sore (And That’s Okay)

Soreness is not a reliable indicator of a good workout. You can still achieve gains without feeling achy afterwards. Here are some reasons you might not be sore even though you were working hard in your workout.

1. Your body is adapting.

If you’ve been training consistently, your muscles are getting better at handling stress. In other words your muscles are becoming more accustomed to that workload!

2. You’re recovering effectively.

Hydration, nutrition, sleep, stretching or foam rolling are all ways to reduce soreness without reducing results.

3. You trained smart, not just hard.

You don’t need to destroy your body to make gains. Progressive overload and good form get the job done. In fact, extreme soreness can be problematic for consistent training, especially in new trainees.

Better Ways to Measure a Good Workout

Some more reliable signs you are making progress in the gym include:

• Lifting more than you could previously 

• You’re training consistently and avoiding injury

• Your effort is high in the workouts you are doing

The Problem with Chasing Soreness

Focusing too much on soreness can actually backfire. Here’s how:

• Increased injury risk: From overtraining

• Poor programming: Random hard workouts with no structure

• Burnout: When trying to run at 110% all the time you are bound to burnout.

Pain doesn’t always equal progress. In fact, always feeling sore might mean you’re overdoing it.

No Pain, Still Gain

Muscle soreness is normal, but it's not a requirement for a good workout. The real signs of progress come from getting stronger, moving better, and staying consistent.

Phillip Vardiman, an associate professor of health at Kansas State University put it perfectly when he said “ If you push yourself hard during a workout and no soreness sets in, that means “your muscles have reached a training capacity to handle that volume of activity or amount of external load. In simpler terms: You’re killin’ it.”