Should We Feel Sore After Every Workout?

Should We Feel Sore After Every Workout?

By Kim Dolan Leto | Wednesday, April 04, 2012 | Comments:  0

If you’re training consistently, there will be a great reduction in the soreness you experience. However, if you’ve just started working out, changed your workout, or decided to train for an event that requires an increase in intensity, you may experience Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness, DOMS. This simply means muscle soreness occurs because of microscopic tears in muscle fibers. Your body is adapting to the new stress you’re putting it under. Protein acts like a glue to repair torn muscle fibers; this is why there is so much importance placed on pre and post workout nutrition.

How sore should you feel?

Some tightness and light discomfort are normal, but nothing debilitating. If you can’t walk right, you’ve overdone it. Overtraining is more common than people think and it is counterproductive to your progress. More is not always better, in fact, overtraining stalls results!

Tips to prevent being sore:

• Warming up properly and stretching during your cool down will minimize soreness. Hold your stretch a bit past your comfort zone and repeat.
• Drinking an adequate amount of water while training. Remember muscles are 70% water, so if your endurance is low, dehydration maybe the cause.
• Fueling your body properly with pre and post training nutrition.
• Following the 10% rule: Only increase your workouts by 10% per week to take the best care of your body.
• Taking a Yoga class.
• Investing in a foam roller and sports massage.
• Allowing 48 hours before training the same muscle group.
• Getting enough sleep. Resting is just as important as training.

If you’re just starting out, being a bit sore is normal and your body will adjust in time. Make sure you’re challenging yourself, but not to the point that you have to take a few days off before you’re able to workout again. Consistency is your friend when it comes to soreness. It’s best to avoid taking time off and exercise regularly. If you’re coming back from a long break, don’t jump back into your old training program, give yourself time to build back up to it. Another issue to consider, the body will acclimate to your training and you will have to continue to change it to keep making progress. It’s important to listen to your body. The balance between too much and too little can be found by tracking your training in a journal with reps, weight, perceived rate of exertion, time, results and how you feel. Do you have any tips that help you when you’re sore?