Sore

When we workout, run or do anything physically exerting, we can get sore muscles. This soreness hits us a day or two after the effort and is called delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). DOMS hits us, not right after the challenging effort or load but a day or two later once the body starts repairing the damaged tissues.

That’s right. When we train really hard, we actually damage our muscle tissue. We get stronger when our body repairs and adapts to the new stimulus. Humans are hard to break. Think of that - if you literally breakdown your muscle tissue, you will build strength. 

I want you to disassociate the feeling of soreness with an effective workout though. We’ve trained society to believe that the only effective workout is the one that leaves you sore 48 hours after completing the training. There’s nothing wrong with being sore (that is, unless you’re getting too sore, and doing too much). For long term training though, we don’t need to chase that feeling to justify an effective workout.

It would pay for you to understand that an effective workout may leave you feeling normal. And that soreness doesn’t correlate to good. Legendary strength coach, Mike Boyle, has been coaching athletes for 40 years. He has a go-to quote when an athlete thinks they need to get sore from a workout. He’ll tell them, instead of training today, let’s go outside and I’ll take swings with a baseball bat at your quads for 60-minutes. That’ll get you sore.

Justin Miner

@portsmouthcoach