Quads and hamstrings never get sore anymore?

PlaceboFX
PlaceboFX Posts: 38 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
So I’ve had an instance with both of these muscle groups where I trained them to the point of possible strain. Unbearably sore for a little over a week both times. But ever since then, my quads and hamstrings just don’t ever seem to get sore, even after a brutal leg day. I know for a fact I’m hitting those muscle groups, I’m doing squats, lunges, Bulgarian split squats, and the leg press, and I’m progressively adding more and more weight. I’m pushing myself to the point of my muscles trembling at the top of a rep, and sweat dripping down.
Yet neither of them are ever sore the next day. I just feel it in my glutes and occasionally my adductors. I’m not complaining, it’s nice not limping around quite so much, but it’s just really strange. Does this make any sense? What’s going on?

Replies

  • ElizabethKalmbach
    ElizabethKalmbach Posts: 1,415 Member
    Your muscles have adjusted to the training load. If you take a couple weeks off or change your routine significantly you'll be back to a couple weeks of ouch, but what you're experiencing is normal and the only reason I can stand to train as much as I do. If it hurt like that ALL THE TIME, I'd never get anything done. ;-)
  • DancingMoosie
    DancingMoosie Posts: 8,619 Member
    My quads and hamstrings aren't usually sore from my normal lifting routine when I get 2x/wk done. If I happen to miss a workout or two, or add a new exercise, that's when I have to play catch up and feel sore again.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    edited February 2020
    For me, sore hamstrings means gardening season has started. C'mon spring!

    Due to bad knees I don't do a lot of traditional lower body strength training, but maybe I'll devise a program to prep for gardening season...
  • MikePTY
    MikePTY Posts: 3,814 Member
    We tend to think that soreness is indicative of a good workout and progress, but it's not necessarily the case. You don't have to have been sore to have worked a muscle group and made gains there.
  • ritzvin
    ritzvin Posts: 2,860 Member
    It's more a sign that you did what you are not used to.... Overdoing it and/or returning after a break from the usual amount. Doesn't happen so much if you are being consistent.

    It was a very pleasant, but shocking, surprise for me when I returned to cycling after a 2 month hiatus (broken collarbone) and was not sore the next day. (in almost all activities, I can guarantee this is not the case for me)... Almost like my leg muscles saying "oh, we knew you weren't giving this one up.. We got you girl").
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    PlaceboFX wrote: »
    So I’ve had an instance with both of these muscle groups where I trained them to the point of possible strain. Unbearably sore for a little over a week both times. But ever since then, my quads and hamstrings just don’t ever seem to get sore, even after a brutal leg day. I know for a fact I’m hitting those muscle groups, I’m doing squats, lunges, Bulgarian split squats, and the leg press, and I’m progressively adding more and more weight. I’m pushing myself to the point of my muscles trembling at the top of a rep, and sweat dripping down.
    Yet neither of them are ever sore the next day. I just feel it in my glutes and occasionally my adductors. I’m not complaining, it’s nice not limping around quite so much, but it’s just really strange. Does this make any sense? What’s going on?

    DOMs is not an indicator of a good workout. DOMs is an indicator that you are untrained and/or that you are doing something new or somehow working those muscles differently. The only time I really get DOMs is when I'm working with my trainer and she has me do something I don't do with frequency on my own like higher rep isolation movements. It's not an indicator that I had a good workout..it's an indicator that I did something my body isn't used to doing.

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