Many people when training think that being sore is a sign of a great
training session, often believing that it’s a sign of muscle growth, fat loss from a specific area, or simply their body’s way of saying:
“Well done champ, you pushed yourself hard today!” This belief is pretty deep rooted in a lot of people for one reason or another.
The problem is, the soreness, known as DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) becomes the goal, as the individual believes it’s linked with the end result they want, and if they don’t get the soreness then the session was a waste of time.
This is a poor way of looking at things, because DOMS has very little evidence linking it to muscle growth, and CERTAINLY has ZERO evidence linking it to fat loss.
In fact, chasing DOMS might actually make your training less effective.
If you are cripplingly sore after training sessions, you may be able to perform less work and volume in your training, meaning you’ll yield less progress over time.
Another good example of how the logic is flawed… Last year I went on holiday to Argentina and we went on a horseback trek across the mountains. The terrain was VERY undulating, rocky and unstable which meant that your inner thighs had to work seriously hard to stop yourself being thrown off the horse.
After spending 10 hours on horseback, I had the WORST soreness in my inner thigh muscles that I’ve ever had.
If the logic of soreness = muscle growth was true then it would stand to reason that riding a horse for 10 hours would lead to loads of growth to my inner thigh muscles.
Pretty unlikely, right? Despite being sore as hell, the stimulus for tension on the muscle was far too low and there wasn’t a significant change to muscle length - both of which are key factors in increasing muscle size.
Instead, rather than chasing soreness, make sure your training involves targeting each muscle group, mainly through "big" exercises like squats, deadlifts, presses, rows and pull ups and has you aiming to get stronger each week.
Much love,
James “Gaucho” Blanchard