Soreness = SURE Sign of Growth

It's always been a question of mine: if you're NOT sore in the morning (DOMS), are you still building the same amount of muscle? I read an interesting article today in MD about an experiment on the weightload placed on lab rats:

When they cut all the muscles in the rats' legs *EXCEPT* the calves, obviously, all the weight was put on the calve muscle. Now I realize that obviously, one step would be one rep, but how many steps would you want to take if every single muscle in your leg was torn, except for the calves? Probably a minimal amount, enough to get food and water. Oddly enough, the calve muscles nearly double in size and strength. Was this power and size added because of extremely increased weight AND moderate reps? Or just extremely increased weight with few reps?

You can't measure how sore a rat's leg muscle is, but you can see the size and test for strength in it. As I mentioned, both increased. Why is this though? What exactly caused that massive strength and size? I'll use an easier to relate to example, and have you pick what you think would work best.

Which of the following set layouts of Bench Press would yield the most growth:

EXAMPLE #1

Set # | Weight | Reps

1 | 200 | 12
2 | 175 | 10
3 | 150 | 8
4 | 100 | 6
5 | 75 | 8~failure (by failure, I'm talking about such a MEAN pump, you can't continue, which means there will be a good chance of soreness/DOMS in the morning)

EXAMPLE #2

1 | 275 | 10
2 | 200 | 7
3 | 150 | 3-6

There are the layouts, which do you think would bring on the most gains in muscle mass?

EX. 2 is how I lift. But more like this:

In your first example I think you would be overtraining and overworking each diff. kind of your three muscle fibers. Therefore I do the following.

1 | 135 | 20 warmup
2 | 135 | 15 warmup
3 | 275 | 8-10 Type B fiber
4 | 335 | 4-6 Type C fiber
5 | 225 | 10-15 Type A fiber
You can work them in any order, as long as they all three have a work set.

Reference/Professional Muscle
"First let me start by saying that our muscles contain two types of tissues, (type 1) and (type 2) fibers.. Type 2 fibers contain the most growth potential so those are the ones you will want to concentrate on if your a bodybuilder. Theres 3 sub-categories of these type-2 fibers. "A-fibers", "B-fibers" and "C-fibers." When all three type-2 fibers are worked it will make the difference between a guy who looks big and a guy who looks BIG!!!

Type A can be stimulated by hitting failure on a weight that will allow for the performance of 11-15 reps. Type B fibers with 6-10 reps and type C fibers will be stimulated by hitting failure in the 1-5 rep range. Good form is always a must! "

Lower reps build more strength, higher reps build more mass. You must do both to get bigger and stronger. It's as simple as that. Some workouts you don't feel too good, that's a great day to take advantage of high reps when you want a nice pump and not too heavy weights. This will stimulate hypertrophy. ON a good day, go for maxes and your strength will shoot up in no time, therefore doing more weight for 10-12 reps therefore adding more mass. Get it?

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Originally Posted by IBdmfkr

EX. 2 is how I lift. But more like this:

In your first example I think you would be overtraining and overworking each diff. kind of your three muscle fibers. Therefore I do the following.

1 | 135 | 20 warmup
2 | 135 | 15 warmup
3 | 275 | 8-10 Type B fiber
4 | 335 | 4-6 Type C fiber
5 | 225 | 10-15 Type A fiber
You can work them in any order, as long as they all three have a work set.

Reference/Professional Muscle
"First let me start by saying that our muscles contain two types of tissues, (type 1) and (type 2) fibers.. Type 2 fibers contain the most growth potential so those are the ones you will want to concentrate on if your a bodybuilder. Theres 3 sub-categories of these type-2 fibers. "A-fibers", "B-fibers" and "C-fibers." When all three type-2 fibers are worked it will make the difference between a guy who looks big and a guy who looks BIG!!!

Type A can be stimulated by hitting failure on a weight that will allow for the performance of 11-15 reps. Type B fibers with 6-10 reps and type C fibers will be stimulated by hitting failure in the 1-5 rep range. Good form is always a must! "

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Wow, very very good advice with references and everything to back it up! Wish we had a rep system on this board... anyway, thanks for that! Clears a couple things up for me. However, brings up more questions:

Using the layout you mentioned...
Do you ALWAYS feel soreness in your chest after a good chest day?

Do you only do one movement (bench press, flyes, dumbell press) for chest, or any bodypart?

You never do more than 5 sets for any bodypart? You run 2 warm up sets and then the 3-fiber killers?

After completing these sets, do you feel a pump, or some type of immediate soreness at all?

Finally, I've been reading around for maximum growth training protocols, and have come up with a pretty basic format: Week 1 = Hit heavy with low reps (any soreness or DOMS?) Week 2 = Hit Light to Moderate with roughly 8-12 reps. (again, should I expect any soreness?) I guess over the years, I've just got it drilled into my head that soreness in the muscle means I hit it hard, and it will grow. Is that correct for the most part? How's that Week 1/Week 2 split look?

My cycle begins Monday, so I don't want to waste any $$ which is why I'm looking for optimal shock techniques and good protocols for solid mass gains. After lifting for a few years, you naturally plateau and need to revise your strategies. Any help is appreciated.

Okay, let me dig up my schedule.

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Originally Posted by Super_Stacked_Pimp

Lower reps build more strength, higher reps build more mass. You must do both to get bigger and stronger. It's as simple as that. Some workouts you don't feel too good, that's a great day to take advantage of high reps when you want a nice pump and not too heavy weights. This will stimulate hypertrophy. ON a good day, go for maxes and your strength will shoot up in no time, therefore doing more weight for 10-12 reps therefore adding more mass

(This line confuses me. Are you saying that once your strength shoots up from those low-rep days, the weight will also increase during your high-rep days as a direct result?)

Get it?

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Yeah, I got that from day 1, but as I said, over the years you tend to slack on some things. Also, when you say pump days, you talking about days where you'll get that immediate pump/soreness, and then wake up the next morning will that "jacked to hell sore" feeling? Where as on low-rep high weight days, you'll just feel more exahusted without DOMS or much soreness?

Take a look at my "Week 1 / Week 2" split in my previous post. Sound about right to you?

Actaully, it's too much to post but let me post the basics.

Chest: Always do a pressing movement and a flye movement
Quadriceps: Always a squatting movement, and for variation an extension may be added
Lats: Always a vertical (chins, pulldowns) and horizontal (rows, db rows) movement

I just listed the major compound groups that you should emphasize on. Don't forget shoulders, I always do a pressing movement and then a lateral raise of some sort (NO UPRIGHT ROWS)

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Originally Posted by Super_Stacked_Pimp

Okay, let me dig up my schedule.

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Damn... what a guy. This is when I could REALLY use that rep-system.

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Originally Posted by Super_Stacked_Pimp

Actaully, it's too much to post but let me post the basics.

Chest: Always do a pressing movement and a flye movement
Quadriceps: Always a squatting movement, and for variation an extension may be added
Lats: Always a vertical (chins, pulldowns) and horizontal (rows, db rows) movement

I just listed the major compound groups that you should emphasize on. Don't forget shoulders, I always do a pressing movement and then a lateral raise of some sort (NO UPRIGHT ROWS)

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Very good, sounds like a decent layout. I've always incorporated compound movements, but once again, sh*t tends to get sloppy after years of doing the same thing. Thanks again for all the help so far.

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Originally Posted by vein-x

Yeah, I got that from day 1, but as I said, over the years you tend to slack on some things. Also, when you say pump days, you talking about days where you'll get that immediate pump/soreness, and then wake up the next morning will that "jacked to hell sore" feeling? Where as on low-rep high weight days, you'll just feel more exahusted without DOMS or much soreness?

Take a look at my "Week 1 / Week 2" split in my previous post. Sound about right to you?

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Well for one, I'll be honest, I don't want to comment on your schedule because I personally don't know you and I don't know what you eat, your bone structure, goals, bodytype and so on. You need to find what works for you.

But as for soreness, it does not matter if you are sore or not. I personally prefer soreness, but not complete soreness. I'd say that just 3 good sets on benching and two sets of flyes make me sore the next day and I grow crazy off of just that. Just it depends on if you have genetics to have your fibers broken down quickly. I have friends who do dropsets for the whole workout and still don't get sore and they grow like weeds. So the bottom line is "the faster you get the workout done, the better off you are from preventing overtraining and muscle loss / weakness the next day."

I don't agree, when trying to build for mass do compound movements, not isolated movements. Isolated movements are not natural and will tend to lead to injury while having less of an effect on working the overall muscle group. Therefore when bulking I do all the major movements and leave out cables and extensions etc... While dieting and getting ready for a show it is recommended to do more isolated movements to work on definition and get the quality look from the muscle. JMO.

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Originally Posted by vein-x

Wow, very very good advice with references and everything to back it up! Wish we had a rep system on this board... anyway, thanks for that! Clears a couple things up for me. However, brings up more questions:

Using the layout you mentioned...
Do you ALWAYS feel soreness in your chest after a good chest day? Usually, depends on how hard I push myself the day before. Always when I change my routine, every 6weeks.
Do you only do one movement (bench press, flyes, dumbell press) for chest, or any bodypart? I do barbell one week and Dumbells the next, key is changing it up and not falling into a routine.

You never do more than 5 sets for any bodypart? You run 2 warm up sets and then the 3-fiber killers? I warm up on my first movement for that particular bodypart. For example, Chest/2warmups-3worksets(Benchpress), 3worksets(Incline), Shoulders/2warmups-3worksets(military), etc...
After completing these sets, do you feel a pump, or some type of immediate soreness at all? If your muscle is burning and feeling extremely tight, it may mean you have lactic acid building up. Overtraining is just as bad, if not worse than undertraining. You should feel a pump, but not completely fatigued.

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Superstacked had a good point,

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Originally Posted by super_stacked_pimp

Well for one, I'll be honest, I don't want to comment on your schedule because I personally don't know you and I don't know what you eat, your bone structure, goals, bodytype and so on. You need to find what works for you.

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righit now my workout has all the repa x12 x 6 x4, should i change taht n only do high weight low reps(take out the 12) then switch to a strictly high rep routine in about 6 weeks