Join in the eternal debate!

[Schwarz]

Hi guys,
A couple of people down the gym were having the old debate about muscle soreness.

One guy was arguing that soreness the next day meant you'd hit the muscle with suffiecient intensity to break it down so now it would grow. The other guy thought that muscle soreness was a sign of overtraining.

What do you guys think? And does this mean that a person on steroids will never experience muscle soreness during cycle because roids makes the muscle repair faster and thus it's very difficult to overtrain while on cycle anyway?

Thanks
S

[stupidhippo]

Dunno, but Im on cycle and I get muscle soreness. Not as much as usually but they get definetly sore... Legs hurt like hell 4 3 days after squatting.

[GOATNUTS]

when im sore the next day i know i did a good job in the gym and bro you can get sore if your on a cycle

[firenwire]

I have actually heard it both aways; I'm not sure what the current research says though. I like the soreness.

[ddoublevision]

If I stop getting sore then its time to try a new routine

soreness = gains IMO

[Soup]

I feel like I have really trained a muscle group when it is sore. This generally happens after some time off, muscles will be more noticably sore the next day. I feel though that your work outs shouldn't be geared to make the muscle sore the next day, because then you are more likely to overtrain.

[ddoublevision]

I'm constantly switching up my workouts/ hitting different angles/therefore soreness

[The Baron]

DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) is a sign of intense training. Not necessarily overtraining, and not necessarily proper, effective training. It is a satisfying thing, though, to feel it, in the days after a seriously focused session.

I can get doms, and I often do only a single set of a particular exercise, and maybe 3 sets total for any bodypart. NO WAY is that overtraining. Yet, when I really nail it and get totally focused and take it to perfect failure, the one set is enough to get DOMS. So no, it is not a definite sign of overtraining. It COULD be noticed by someone overtraining, but only coincidentally. I did lower body yesterday... one set of weighted crunches, two (couldn't resist) sets squats, one set calf raises, one set hamstring curls supersetted with leg extensions for a finish, and my legs feel like giant, throbbing erections today. I can't say exactly what the mechanism is behind DOMS, though I am sure it has something with microdamage caused by both muscular stress and high lactic acid. Maybe I will try a couple weeks sometime of low reps and fast sets, getting done before significant lactic acid buildup, and see if that makes a difference.

BTW, I ALWAYS go to failure, even on squats. That's what power cages and smith machines are for... perfect unfailing dependable mechanical spotters. Why do 40 sets if you can get it right on the first one? Failure sets, for me, almost always result in some degree of soreness the next day. Sometimes excruciatingly, almost erotically so. And I can grow with only an hour or so per week total training.

One adviso... some guys simply don't get DOMS, especially after training for a couple of years. I would hesitate to state that they are not training intensely enough just because they don't get sore. If you are growing, obviously you are training hard enough to grow. Don't let lack of soreness bother you.

[Schwarz]

Thanks for all your answers guys. This is very interesting. I would like to hear more from people who juice...do you get as much soreness when you are on cycle as when you are off?

Thanks

S

[Soup]

here is an explination I found on the web:
The expression "lactic acid" is used most commonly by athletes to describe the intense pain felt during exhaustive exercise, especially in events like the 400 metres and 800 metres. When energy is required to perform exercise it is supplied from the breakdown of Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP). The body has a limited store of about 85 grms of ATP and would use it up very quickly if we did not have ways of resynthesising it. There are three systems that produce energy to resynthesise ATP: ATP-PC, lactic acid and aerobic.

The lactic acid system is capable of releasing energy to resynthesise ATP without the involvement of oxygen and is called anaerobic glycolysis. Glycolysis (breakdown of carbohydrates) results in the formation of pyruvic acid and hydrogens ions (H+). A build up of H+ will make the muscle cells acidic and interfere with their operation so carrier molecules, called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+), remove the H+. The NAD+ is reduced to NADH which deposit the H+ at the electron transport gate (ETC) in the mitrochondria to be combined with oxygen to form water (H2O).

If there is insufficient oxygen then NADH cannot release the H+ and they build up in the cell. To prevent the rise in acidity pyruvic acid accepts H+ forming lactic acid which then dissociates into lactate and H+. Some of the lactate diffuses into the blood stream and takes some H+ with it as a way of reducing the H+ concentration in the muscle cell. The normal pH of the muscle cell is 7.1 but if the build up of H+ continues and pH is reduced to around 6.5 then muscle contraction may be impaired and the low pH will stimulate the free nerve endings in the muscle resulting in the perception of pain (the burn). This point is often measured as the lactic threshold or anaerobic threshold or onset of blood lactate accumulation (OBLA).

find the whole text at:
http://www.brianmac.demon.co.uk/lactic.htm

[stupidhippo]

here is an explination I found on the web:
The expression "lactic acid" is used most commonly by athletes to describe the intense pain felt during exhaustive exercise, especially in events like the 400 metres and 800 metres. When energy is required to perform exercise it is supplied from the breakdown of Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP). The body has a limited store of about 85 grms of ATP and would use it up very quickly if we did not have ways of resynthesising it. There are three systems that produce energy to resynthesise ATP: ATP-PC, lactic acid and aerobic.

The lactic acid system is capable of releasing energy to resynthesise ATP without the involvement of oxygen and is called anaerobic glycolysis. Glycolysis (breakdown of carbohydrates) results in the formation of pyruvic acid and hydrogens ions (H+). A build up of H+ will make the muscle cells acidic and interfere with their operation so carrier molecules, called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+), remove the H+. The NAD+ is reduced to NADH which deposit the H+ at the electron transport gate (ETC) in the mitrochondria to be combined with oxygen to form water (H2O).

If there is insufficient oxygen then NADH cannot release the H+ and they build up in the cell. To prevent the rise in acidity pyruvic acid accepts H+ forming lactic acid which then dissociates into lactate and H+. Some of the lactate diffuses into the blood stream and takes some H+ with it as a way of reducing the H+ concentration in the muscle cell. The normal pH of the muscle cell is 7.1 but if the build up of H+ continues and pH is reduced to around 6.5 then muscle contraction may be impaired and the low pH will stimulate the free nerve endings in the muscle resulting in the perception of pain (the burn). This point is often measured as the lactic threshold or anaerobic threshold or onset of blood lactate accumulation (OBLA).

find the whole text at:
http://www.brianmac.demon.co.uk/lactic.htm

These are all good facts but they dont necessarily explain all kinds of soreness. At least to me the most sore I get is 2 days after I've maxed out on my current max (1 rep) or even just in bringing one too heavy weight to my chest (in BP)... So in those the lactic acid theory doesnt apply..