There are a wealth of opinions online about what sore muscles actually mean for you before, during and after a workout. Fitness enthusiasts and wannabe alpha males will tell you it means you’re doing the right thing and that you need to keep going, in line with that ‘no pain, no gain’ mentality. Other safe players will tell you that your body is telling you it can’t sustain its current workload and you need to rest. So who is right? If we’re talking in absolutes, it’s neither. As always, the truth is somewhere in the middle.
Let’s start with the ‘pro sore muscles’ school of thought if there is such a thing. The reason for sore muscles is pretty simple. As you work those muscles and joints, you start to put them under immense strain; more than their usual daily workload. Small ‘micro tears’ appear in the muscles. These are common and repair over a day or two if left to rest. But crucially, your muscles will become inflamed as the body works overtime to protect and repair them, sending various nutrients to the damaged areas to aid in recovery. Now this doesn’t happen in your daily life. Your body can cope with walking, jogging and the usual things we do without breaking a sweat. But when you are really putting it under some pressure, the soreness comes out. Fitness enthusiasts will naturally always equate this with “that’s the sign you’re doing the workout correctly”, and they’re halfway right. If you don’t feel some kind of soreness at the end of your workout, you are probably not giving your body enough of a run through. But that does not automatically mean the workout is going completely as planned. When you start to feel sore, your body is also telling you it’s time to stop and rest to allow rehabilitation. “No pain, no gain” is unfortunately a fallacy.
Moving to the other side of the argument, it is not the case that you must ensure you never feel sore. If you don’t want muscle soreness, you’re unfortunately going to have to make do with walking and, at best, light jogging, as anything past this will, for a beginner at least, mean some sort of sore muscles. Take the soreness as the sign that you have ‘hit that point’. The whole point of exercise is to push your body and get it working hard, but not to an overly strenuous and potentially dangerous degree. In fact, you can actually use the soreness as a benchmark of when to stop. It’s also a pretty reliable indicator of muscle health overall. Once that soreness has subsided, you’re pretty much ready to get back out and train again (although without going overboard of course.) Over time, you will notice that the time you can work out for, and the intensity of that workout, will increase and you’ll feel less strain when doing the same level of work; your muscles will take longer to feel sore, and in time, the soreness will also last for less time if you follow simple rules such as hydrating well and getting plenty of rest.
In summary, sore muscles are neither one nor the other. They are definitely a good indicator that your muscles have all been properly worked, but by that same token, you’re also being told that you’ve done your work and need to rest up. Listen to what your body is telling you and appreciate sore muscles for the primitive warning signal that they are, but at the same time, acknowledge that your body is telling you you’re giving it a hell of a workout.
