Do You Have To Get Sore To Build Muscle?

Do You Have To Get Sore To Build Muscle?

Many people think muscle soreness equals muscle growth. But that’s just not the case.

Believe it or not, you can build muscle regardless if you get sore or not and that’s what you’ll learn about in the video below…

Muscle soreness is NOT an indicator of a successful workout. Soreness just means that your muscle tissue is still inflamed and has not fully recovered.

For the most part it’s only out of shape beginners who get really sore after working out. Generally, the better shape you are in, and the more advanced you get, the less muscle soreness you’ll experience because you can recover faster from your workouts.

And that’s a good thing!
It should be a big relief to know that you don’t have to get sore and live the rest of your days in pain and agony simply because you choose to include weight training as part of your lifestyle.

Our body is not meant to be in pain and this should not be looked upon as a good thing.

The whole muscle soreness myth comes about when people first start weight training. At this stage their recovery sucks because they are out of shape. When they workout they are providing totally unique muscle stimulation that the body is not accustomed to, and this breaks down the muscle tissue and causes soreness.

This soreness could last for several days (or longer) and people mistakenly assume that they must have done a good workout if they are really sore afterwards. And then they’ll back that up by saying silly catch phases like “No Pain, No Gain” which is really a crock of BS.

While some people may think it’s cool and tough to say such things. That’s not how muscle growth really works.

The only way to know if you are on the right track for building muscle is with progressive overload. This simply means that you have to be getting stronger overtime, by either lifting more weight, performing more reps, or completing a set workload in less time.

If you are not getting stronger and you are not increasing your work capacity, than you are not building muscle, regardless of how sore you get.

Now generally the way muscle soreness works is that when you start off working out you’ll get really sore afterwards, especially if you are over zealous and do too much, too soon.

But if you stick with it and let your body adapt to the workouts, you’ll gradually experience less and less muscle soreness after training.

And eventually you’ll get to the point where you can go into the gym, bust your butt doing a really hard and intense workout, and you won’t experience any soreness at all the next day.

When this first happens a lot of guys mistakenly think they are doing something wrong. That they are not working out hard enough and that they need to push themselves even harder in the gym in order to get back the muscle soreness.

But instead, this lack of muscle soreness should be looked upon as a good thing. It means your body is adapting and growing from your workouts and that your work capacity has increased to the point where you quickly recover from intense training sessions.

However, this doesn’t mean that advanced lifters will never get sore. Sometimes when you do push yourself extra hard or try a new exercise or new workout routine that you’re not accustomed to you may still experience some muscle soreness.

But again, that doesn’t mean you’ve built more muscle. It just means that you are not fully recovered yet and need a little more rest time before hitting the gym again.

Remember, soreness does not have anything to do with what causes muscle gains — It’s progressive overload (lifting more weight and getting stronger over time) that is the stimulus to building bigger muscles.

So don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you have to train for muscle soreness. I mean if soreness was all that was needed for muscle growth you could get someone to repeatedly punch you in the arms, while this may make you sore, it anit going to do anything for helping you build muscle.

Bottom line — lift smart and strive to increase the weights you are lifting over time with progressive overload. While you may still get sore from time to time, it’s just a sign that you haven’t fully recovered yet and need some extra rest. But don’t think that it’s the soreness that’s building muscle, because it’s not.