Why You Don't Need to Feel Sore After a Workout to Know if You've Exercised Enough

"No pain, no gain" is a commonly used expression when it comes to getting in shape. It may be the reason that many of us think that we need to feel sore after a workout.

There are many reasons why your muscles are sore. Contrary to popular belief, you don't need to feel sore in the days and weeks after exercise to know you have had a good workout.

DOMS is the scientific term to describe the sore and tender feeling our muscles have after a workout. It usually happens after we do a lot of exercise, or if we do not exercise at all. It can happen after any type of exercise, though it is more common after eccentric exercise.

These are movements where the muscles resist a load as they are stretched. The smaller upper-limb muscles can be more susceptible to DOMS as they may not be used to eccentric exercise.

DOMS can happen even hours after a workout, but it usually peaks two days later, depending on the intensity and volume of exercise. The reason for DOMS is poorly understood and researchers have a few theories about what is going on.

The current theory is that DOMS is linked to other things.

1. Mechanical damage (to the protein structure of the muscle fiber),
2. Damage to the membrane encasing the muscle fiber,
3. Damage to the connective tissue surrounding the muscle fibers,
4. The body's inflammatory response, causing further muscle protein breakdown and stimulating certain nerves, causing pain.

A certain amount of exercise-related muscle damage is needed to build larger, stronger muscles. You are less likely to experience DOMS the next time you exercise because muscle damage from exercise may reduce how well muscles work after a workout.

This may explain why people who exercise frequently do not experience DOMS as frequently.

The damaging effect of exercise on the muscles has been shown to be reduced by regular weight training. There are a number of reasons for this, but it is mostly due to the muscle becoming better at protecting against damage.

DOMS can vary from person to person. Older people may be less able to recover from exercise than younger people.

People with a certain genetic makeup are better able to recover from eccentric exercise than other people.

It is difficult to avoid DOMS if you are starting out a new exercise program that is particularly intense or long- lasting. Adding more eccentric exercises to your training program can lead to DOMS.

Being sore doesn't mean you have had a more effective session, it just means you are doing something that your muscles aren't used to.

Your muscles have gotten better at dealing with the damage and recovering from it, so if you regularly exercise and find you aren't feeling as sore later in the day or even in the days after, rest assured that your workout is still working.

If you want to get fit and stronger, instead of feeling like you need to work out until you get sore, concentrate on a principle called progressive overload. This is where you increase the amount of exercise you do each time, such as doing extra reps on an exercise.

It is shown that progressive overload is an effective way to build muscle and strength. Studies show that even a few weeks of using progressive overload is enough to see the effect.

If you want to increase the effectiveness of your workout, try to increase the number of reps you do each week or the amount of weight you lift. The gains in strength and fitness will show you how effective your workouts have been.

Carl Langan-Evans is a post-doctoral research fellow in Strength and Conditioning at John Moores University.

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