Ok well I have been working out for 6 years I took a 8 month break cause i got hurt and just started working out again for about 3 months strait. I Was getting really sore to where i could not walk almost. I started eating somewhat clean bulking meals getting in probably 200 to 300 grams of protiene per day. And Im taking all the basic supplement ingredients. I have been working out to the point of failure pyramiding from warm up low weight to as heavy as i can do for 8 to 10 reps than going to failure and decreasing the weight tell i cant move the muscles at all even with small ammounts of weight. Than doing deep stretches to try and get more muscle tears for more size.
But for the last week since I added in creatine I can not get sore no matter how hard I work out. I tried resting for only 20 to 30 seconds inbetween sets and everything. And i am working out harder than anyone I see at the gym to the point my body just cant even move the weight a inch more. So I am worried should I be taking off days from the gym still im working out 5 times a week. Im considering working out each muscle twice a week is that over kill.
What should I do about this and is it a good thing. I havent recovered this fast since I took pro hormones years ago. I am confused and would like to know should I work out each muscle twice a week or should i maybe try not working out for a few days to fully recover and maybe try to hit the gym even harder and more intense which I dont think Is physically possible maybe it is but I really am going all out yesterday I almost puked and had to sit down at the end of my work out for like 10 minutes so im hitting it pretty damn hard.
As long as you are getting an effective workout, lifting with intensity and challenging weight not being sore is a good thing. If you wanna be sore then just try a bunch of different and new exercises you havent done in a while. Lift heavy for low reps, moderate weight high reps, do negatives, and etc.
Soreness is a good indicator your hitting the muscles adequately (in terms of exercise selection and overall volume), but you should only keep getting sore for the first two weeks of whatever type of training/program you are doing. IME the first two workouts, there is noticeable soreness in the next 1-2 days (namely second day, at least for me), but after the third workout and beyond, there is minimal soreness. There’s still some muscle damage obviously, like if you contract your chest really hard you can probably make it cramp up or something.
I’ve been doing the John Meadows workouts (like f*cking everybody lately lmao) and I was only sore for the first two weeks.
gregron by all means don’t hold back your comments about what I’ve said I love negative feed back. Same with you mr walkway lets make this interesting. Maybe I’ll actually learn something. And thank you for the feed back PB andy. The weird thing is even when i contract the muscles as hard as I can I don’t feel anything.
If I’m not getting sore and I WANT to be sore for a change, I just switch in a new exercise or two and up the volume. Works every time. I’ve been weight training for about 7 years so it’s not like I’m at a different stage than you either, scientist.
thanks to every one who is giving good advice. I will try some new exercises and go maybe more extreme on lowering the reps or raising them and see how that works. If none of that works I will just try working out each muscle twice a week.
Essentially what you need to wrap your head around is that muscle soreness does not necessarily mean that you had an amazing workout. Some times it can be a sign of lack of quality caloric intake pre and pose workout.
This also carries over to “feeling the burn” during a movement. If you hold your arms over your head for long enough you will start to feel a burn in the muscle, but this doesn’t in turn result in muscle growth. the longer a specific muscle or muscle group is active the more lactic acid the body will release into the area.
In my personal opinion (and it is like an asshole, everyone has one), judge your workouts on your over all performance and ignore the “soreness” thing all together. I am referring to: ability during training, pump in the muscles, recovery, and most importantly any gains your getting.
If you can obtain solid gains without getting overly sore there’s nothing wrong, actually quite the opposite. Your training, diet, and recovery times are most likely dialed in for the time being.
Soreness is like any form of pain, your body can get desensitized to it. Meaning that the soreness-causing phenomenon is still there, but you don’t feel it, or very little.
That’s why if you stop training for a while and come back, you will get super sore: because your body is resensitized to the sensation.
And soreness is mostly an indication of muscle damage. And muscle damage is not actually necessary to cause growth. The key is to get the muscle cells to send the chemical signal to increase protein synthesis and that can occur without muscle damage.
As PB Andy said, soreness is not a a prerequisite for gains. Gains can occur without soreness and soreness can occur without gains. The only true measure of progress is … well… progress!!! Are you getting stronger? Are you adding muscle tissue.
You can get stronger without generating muscle damage, and not gain any muscle (like powerlifters trying to stay in a weight class).
I don’t understand gaining mass without generating muscle damage though? Aren’t most bodybuilding routines based around generating muscle damage to induce growth? Doesn’t there have to be some muscle damage to trigger a growth response? More damage = more of a growth response?
You can get stronger without generating muscle damage, and not gain any muscle (like powerlifters trying to stay in a weight class).
I don’t understand gaining mass without generating muscle damage though? Aren’t most bodybuilding routines based around generating muscle damage to induce growth? Doesn’t there have to be some muscle damage to trigger a growth response? More damage = more of a growth response?[/quote]
No, bodybuilding routines are geared towards recruiting as many muscle fibres as possible in a given muscle and fatiguing them. Muscle damage is just a by product of the training, but not the goal.
You can get stronger without generating muscle damage, and not gain any muscle (like powerlifters trying to stay in a weight class).
I don’t understand gaining mass without generating muscle damage though? Aren’t most bodybuilding routines based around generating muscle damage to induce growth? Doesn’t there have to be some muscle damage to trigger a growth response? More damage = more of a growth response?[/quote]
Muscle damage is not the goal, it’s something that can happen when you do the things necessary to cause growth. If you do too much of them or if your muscles are not used to that type of work you will cause more damage. But understand this. Once the cell signaling (there are several pathways via which the muscle cells tell the body to build more tissue) is sent, doing more work will not bring more growth.
While some muscle damage is okay, if it comes with the optimal cell signaling, too much damage is not better because it actually digs a bigger hole to fill: because being able to add new tissue, you must repair the damage. Let’s say that when the muscle cell signal growth, you have 10 growth units to spend… if you spend 2 of those repairing damage you have 8 left to create new muscle. If you have to spend 8 to repair the damage you only have 2 units left… so you will not grow as much.
You can get stronger without generating muscle damage, and not gain any muscle (like powerlifters trying to stay in a weight class).
I don’t understand gaining mass without generating muscle damage though? Aren’t most bodybuilding routines based around generating muscle damage to induce growth? Doesn’t there have to be some muscle damage to trigger a growth response? More damage = more of a growth response?[/quote]
Muscle damage is not the goal, it’s something that can happen when you do the things necessary to cause growth. If you do too much of them or if your muscles are not used to that type of work you will cause more damage. But understand this. Once the cell signaling (there are several pathways via which the muscle cells tell the body to build more tissue) is sent, doing more work will not bring more growth.
While some muscle damage is okay, if it comes with the optimal cell signaling, too much damage is not better because it actually digs a bigger hole to fill: because being able to add new tissue, you must repair the damage. Let’s say that when the muscle cell signal growth, you have 10 growth units to spend… if you spend 2 of those repairing damage you have 8 left to create new muscle. If you have to spend 8 to repair the damage you only have 2 units left… so you will not grow as much.
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Wouldn’t generating more damage cause more of a response up to a certain point though? So if I went in and didn’t generate much damage I might get 8 growth units but if I generated a ton of damage I might have 20 or 30 growth units(some of which repair, some overcompensate)? If you took more recovery days they might generally be equivalent?
Of course if by the time your next workout rolls around your body is just finishing repairing the damage (and didn’t compensate by adding more muscle yet), I guess it would be counterproductive, though
I’m also taking High blood pressure medication under the name of atenol which is a beta blocker. I heard from my chiropractor that it can actually seriously slow down my atp production. I dont know if that is true but that would explain why the exact day my soreness stopped was the day I added creatine back in to my supplement stack. Im starting to realize beta blockers have a lot of weird side effects for example it will compete with the receptors if i was to take a beta agonist like clenbuterol.
Which basically means all of a sudden my heart rate would sky rocket from the clen and my beta blocker would stop working or the clen would have no or little effect on me. If anyone has any other side effects about beta blockers they know about I would be happy to hear about them ive been on beta blockers for about 5 years. I already know i can’t use my heart rate as a indicator for cardio since beta blockers slow it down.