muscle soreness

Are you sore from your strength training workout?

From this book, The Body by Science Question and Answer Book, this quote:

“Soreness doesn’t have any direct correlation to growth stimulation.”

 And this:

“The truth is that soreness is not a valid measure of anything but soreness.”

You might be sore after a workout especially in the beginning, but soreness is not our goal.  Our purpose is to make you stronger which will make your life easier.

Testimonies from our clients describing the changes being stronger has made in their lives:

  • 72 year old female client able to crawl around on the floor to reconnect her computer system
  • A petite 5 foot woman is able to easily carry her 50 lb bag of dog food
  • 69 year old female client able to lift her garage door
  • A female client able to place her 80 lb harp in her car by herself
  • A male easily able to crawl around attics for his job without any pain

 

When you stub your toe, your toe is sore, but you don’t expect your toe to come back stronger for the experience. The type of training we do at Austin Personal Training and at New Orleans Personal Training will make you stronger and make your life easier. There are many more testimonies and lives that have been changed for the better through Kelly Personal Training. This is done by working one on one with a trainer once a week for thirty minutes.

Thank you to Gretchen Beaty, personal trainer at Kelly Personal Training Austin, for writing this blog post.

Lactic acid soreness – “one of the classic mistakes in the history of science"

A quote from this NYT article, Lactic Acid Is Not Muscles' Foe, It's Fuel:

“’The notion that lactic acid was bad took hold more than a century ago’ … It stuck because it seemed to make so much sense.

‘It's one of the classic mistakes in the history of science.’ ”

The article goes on to say that the idea that lactic acid causes muscle soreness never made sense, because lactic acid is gone from your muscles within an hour of exercise,  The soreness stays.

With strength training certain things are observable:

  • 1. Muscle soreness after strength training can last for days.
  • 2. Given enough time after strength training muscles adapt by becoming stronger.
  • 3. The time needed for recovery varies from person to person.

 

Since we don’t know the precise amount of time needed to recover from strength training why not error on the side of more rest rather than less rest? The advantages:

  • 1. Less likely that exercise sessions will become drudgery.
  • 2. Less chance of a repetitive-use injury.
  • 3. You are more likely to stick to it.
  • 4. Less likely to have a compromised immune system from overtraining.
  • 5. You will be more likely to receive the full benefit of your efforts.

 

Regarding number five, when there is insufficient time between workouts you will ruin two workouts - you will not be fully recovered from your first workout, and you will not be up to speed for the second one. You will not improve, and you will have wasted valuable time and effort. To get thehighest marginal return on exercise it is essential to have adequaterecovery time,and lactic acid does not come into the mix. You might find thatless frequent exercise can have a profoundly positive effect.

It is often difficult to get a handle on recovery and how often to train.  At Austin Personal Training and at New Orleans Fitness Trainers we can help you with that.