did the lifting do anything??

[Cman]

I've weightlifted for about 2 and a half years now. One question that I've never been able to get a really good clear answer to is this: Whenever I lift and the next day, the muscles that were trained are not sore, does that mean that the lifting did nothing? After a lift, I like to feel the soreness the next day to be sure it did something. Can anyone give me an answer?

One more thing on a completely unrelated topic. Save your money and do NOT see "House of the Dead." It is a horrible movie with the worst acting I have ever witnessed.

[platinum_angel]

you mean house of a thousand corpses

[arsen]

According to this article http://www.combativesolutions.com/massreport.pdf the soreness doesn't neccesarilly mean your work out was productive. So my guess is that not being sore doesn't mean it wasn't productive? I lift a lot, well not as much I'd like to, and I hardly ever get sore either.

[grubbogoppoly]

Yeah. .What he said. .But, sounds like you may need to change up your routine. How long have you been doing your present routine?

[Cman]

oh, i do know about the switching up your routine concept already..it's just that I wondered if soreness=more results

[Sean Dempsey]

Soreness = Hypertrophy

Hypertrophy = microtears in the actin-myosin filaments from eccentric movements (the negative... on a bicep curl it's the "down" movement).

If you aren't sore, that means you more than likely aren't focusing on the eccentric/negative aspect of the lifts. And, it probably means you aren't going heavy enough.

Try this next time you're at the gym, do it exactly as I say just as an experiment.

Find out how much you can barbell curl 6 times. For me, it'd be something like 110 lbs probably.

Make sure you can't do any more than 6. It should be 6 real gut wrenchers. 7 reps should be 100% impossible to complete.

Then do 4 reps, curl the weight up normal, and then let it down AS SLOW AS POSSIBLE. Hold it like it's life or death.

Do 2 or 3 sets of that.

Then do the same thing on the preacher bench.

Then do the same thing with dumbells.


Make the downward movement SLOW and HEAVY. You'll be sore.

Not only that, but you're muscles will get BIGGER if you do this regularly with all your lifts.

[grubbogoppoly]

Well. .You need to tell us what your goals are before we answer actually. If you are looking for mass then what sean said is pretty damn close. If you are going for power. Then you SHOULD NOT BE SORE.

[mpg9999]

Originally posted by grubbogoppoly
Well. .You need to tell us what your goals are before we answer actually. If you are looking for mass then what sean said is pretty damn close. If you are going for power. Then you SHOULD NOT BE SORE.

It's been my experience that when I first start up lifting, I always get very sore for the first few weeks. After that it gradually goes down to a point where I can barely notice that I am sore, but its still there. I know that even when I am not very sore it must still be working because I can still step up to heavier wieghts every so often. If I slack off and dont go to the gym for a month, then go back, the soreness returns for the first few times.

-Mike

[grubbogoppoly]

Notice the previous guy said that when he isn't sore he knows its working because he can still step up the weights. Like I said for power you don't need to be sore. But for bodybuilding(mass etc) it is my belief that you have to be sore.

[falcon3624]

You don't have to get sore to put on mass. I lift alot and I lift alot of weight and I hardly ever get sore

[falcon3624]

Alot of the time what people call soreness really isn't soreness. Alot of times people say they know they got a good workout because they can feel the "burn". Fact of the matter is that when you work out your muscles hard they want to grow but they need something to build off of. Protein is the building block for muscles and without it you won't go anywhere and often with the right amount you don't experience as much or alot of times no soreness because your muscles can grow the way they want to because they have the proper nutrition. Most of the time that burn you feel in the muscles is a build up of lactic acid and the reason it build up is because of lack of protein or amino acids. Too little protein causes the acid to build in the muscles and can cause alot of pain but with the right amounts of protein the acid cycles out.

Now don't get me wrong here because if you don't work out much and just go in the gym and take a bunch of protein and work out hard you are gonna get sore because they are not used to working that hard. What I am saying about the proper protein and all is on a person that works out regular. I usually workout on weights about 3 times a week and do BJJ and MT 3 times a week.

[grubbogoppoly]

Where did you get the idea that lactic acid build up was due to a lack of protein? You are forming lactic acid in your body as you are sitting there. Lactic acid buildup is due to your body producing more than it can break down. In addition lactic acid DOES NOT CAUSE MUSCULAR SORENESS. It causes muscular failure in the anaerobic energy system.

[falcon3624]

I never said that lactic acid built up because of lack of protein. Lactic acid is a waste product made by muscles when they work and then they are sent to other parts of the body to be broken down and expelled from the body.

Lack of protein and improper nutrition does play a part in this whole sceme of things. Without proper nutrition what goes to the muscle and what comes from it is slowed down. Basically what this means is that without proper nutrition being brought into the muscle it can slow the process down of expelling lactic acid. With the proper nutrtion the body is rushing protein, carbs, etc. to the the muscles and this also aids in pushing the lactic acid out.

[grubbogoppoly]

Falcon you stated that"Most of the time that burn you feel in the muscles is a build up of lactic acid and the reason it build up is because of lack of protein or amino acids."

[grubbogoppoly]

The protein doesn't aid in clearing lactic acid. The protein aids in the healing of the microscopic tears in the muscle.