soreness

nlwrfa

so i've completed week two with a trainer learning how to lift! so far so great! question... my first work out was horrible the day after... think using the counter to get down to pee! granted I hadn't used these muscles in forever! Just had my 6th work out with her... and i'm not super sore anymore. Is this normal? i feel heaviness... i guess would be the best way to explain it like when i'm walking up stairs.. but when just moving about or sitting i don't feel the soreness i had. I also upped my protein. Does this mean I need to do heavier or is my body just learning how to deal with it after doing 5 work outs that i'm recovering better? thanks in advance.

Gallowmere1984

Yes, it's absolutely normal for the level of soreness to pretty rapidly dissipate. The repeated bout effect sets in faster for some than others. Essentially, the more you do a particular movement pattern in a similar rep range, even with higher loading, the less muscle damage you will incur.

The first couple of weeks are often the absolute worst for any trainee, though how long it takes for the soreness to reduce varies a lot from person to person, and even the slightest changes can make it come back to some extent. For example, I was cutting my squats about a half inch to an inch high for months. As soon as I started sinking that extra bit, the soreness came back for a couple of weeks, even with a slight reduction in load, to allow my body to get confident with hitting my bottom position.

nlwrfa

@Gallowmere1984 good to know! I have really bad mobility issues with my ankles after an accident so I'm not sure my squats will get much lower but thank you for replying

Rusty740

You've stumbled upon a truth intuitively known by lifters throughout the ages. Soreness = grow (sort of)

You will notice that when you do heavy weights for less repetitions(4-6 or so), you get less sore than if you did medium reps with medium reps (8-12) or so. I want to say it's something to do with metabolites or something, but I'm not that smart, but a read and watch some smart people. Look up what Mike Israetel has to say about soreness (DOMS) in lifting. I think this is the right one, but it might be a different video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQWlLiZKcO0 He knows what he's talking about.

There's a silver lining in feeling sore, now this is not always true, but in general, you know you're growing when your workout produces some kind of soreness a couple days later. It works like this. If you lift a lot and you never get sore, it's pretty clear you aren't achieving optimal strength or growth. On the flip side, if you are wrecked and sore all the time, you're going too hard, have no chance for recovery and won't be able to lift the heavy weights you need to progress. Also not optimal.

So if you are looking for a good, easy indication of the quality of your lifting, getting sore now and then is a really good one. Looks like you've got that covered