Bodypart Frequency and Soreness – Q&A
Question: You have discussed training frequency on your site and suggest that training a body part twice a week to every 5th day, what would you say if on that fifth day my legs are still sore and I’m generally fatigued, would you recommend waiting an additional day or so? Or just work through the soreness?
Answer: There are actually two different issues that you’re bringing up here which are the general fatigue and the soreness and I want to address them separately.
First, the easier of the two which is soreness. Simply, this doesn’t matter. Soreness appears to mainly be an issue of connective tissue damage more than anything muscularly (despite still being called Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness or DOMS) and there is no problem training through it. Most find that by the time they finish their warm-ups (see Warming Up for the Weight Room Part 1 and Warming Up for the Weight Room Part 2 for detailed information on this), the majority of the soreness is gone and even more find that as they get used to a higher training frequency soreness becomes much less anyhow. They also usually start growing better.
The general fatigue issue is something else. Mind you, without knowing more about your weekly setup, it’s a little hard to address this totally. Because while it could be related to the previous workout it could also be related to lifestyle factors like sleep (or a lack thereof), nutrition, overall life stress, etc. Making sure that those are in order often fixes any problems.
As well, realize that many people find that they have some of their best workouts when they walk into the gym feeling a bit under. They’ll be yawning and a bit apathetic and then just proceed to blow it out or have banner and PR days. I suspect this is just an issue of not wasting a lot of mental energy ahead of time and relaxing during the workout and letting it happen instead of trying to force it.
But that’s far from universal. My usual recommendation for folks when they get to the gym or training not feeling really up for it is to at least go through their warm-ups. Often by the end of it they feel great and have a good workout. If it’s still not happening, I’d either recommend calling it a day and going home or just going through a short active recovery workout (read Active Versus Passive Recovery for more), keeping volume and intensity dialed way back. Ideally you should leave the gym feeling better than you walked in. If not, you went too hard.
I’d mention that often the problem is related to the previous workout simply being overwhelmingly intense. Many people who start to increase their training frequency don’t dial it back in their workouts and get themselves into trouble. You may find that reducing the workload even slightly (not taking any sets to failure, reducing volume a bit) at the previous workout (i.e. the Monday workout before a Friday workout) prevents the soreness and fatigue issues.
Finally, I’d mention that people who are using considerable poundages (i.e. who are very strong) often can’t pull off the higher training frequencies without adjusting their total work load majorly. A heavy/light system (where only one workout is truly heavy and the second workout for that exercise or muscle group is much lighter) often allows the same higher training frequency while improving recovery. Again, that’s usually for more advanced trainees who are handling very heavy weights and for whom two truly heavy workouts per week are simply too much.
Lyle,
“They’ll be yawning and a bit apathetic and then just proceed to blow it out or have banner and PR days.”
That is so true. I get a bit discouraged at first and sometimes on days when I think I’ll have the worst workout, it ends up being the best. And there are times when my nutrition is 100%, my water intake is good, I feel great and my workout is sub-par.
Thank you for validating that you can work thur soreness. I’ve never felt soreness was an indicator of progress either. Extreme soreness on the other hand, I wouldn’t work thru. The type where DOMS is so prevalent that after a warm up your range of motion is limited.
My personal response to the fatigue issue is to fuel myself through it.
If I go into the gym feeling flat, tired and worn-out I allow myself a period of grace during which I warm-up and do my first and perhaps second exercise. If after doing that I still feel low, I go for an energy drink, some fruit, a flapjack or a protein plus carbs drink, give it a few mins and carry on. 95% of the time this seems to sort me out.
One big confounder with this strategy is that i generally train fasted (plus 10g or so of whey and creatine) so it could simply be that I am not fully recovered from my previous days exertions and am running on low energy.
I have recently been adding in N Acetyl L Tyrosine to my pre workout drink (taken with creatine 15 mins before starting training, then having the whey protein in my water bottle to sip on during training) and this does seem to increase focus and energy levels a little. FWIW
I would like to hear of others approaches to dealing with general fatigue.
George you don’t “N Acetyl L Tyrosine”, you need to ring up Thibs and get you some accoconda. It is the biz.
“As well, realize that many people find that they have some of their best workouts when they walk into the gym feeling a bit under. They’ll be yawning and a bit apathetic and then just proceed to blow it out or have banner and PR days.”
This reminded me of a study from college (back in the day!). If I remember correctly it was from one of the former block countries. They took two groups of advanced lifters, had them do the same workout, but what they did between sets was the difference. One group was told to focus on their next set, to just think about what was coming up. The second group was made to do math problems between sets. The group doing the math performed better than the group thinking about their next set.
That’s all I remember. The actual methodology could have been totally screwed. Maybe Lyle can dig this up or any studies looking at the same stuff. Interesting though, how much the mind can influence the physical. Hard to account for that in research studies in the exercise field.
I was in a similar situation earlier on; not only did i feel tired mentally as well as physically from my daily exertions, i found that once i went thought a few explosive movements, ie squat jumps, speed deadlifts, and some dynamic stretching for my hamstrings, i felt warm, switched on and ready. I also pulled a deadlift PR! Sometimes i find its more about activating my central nervous system to help with the “switching on” part before the workout.
“Soreness appears to mainly be an issue of connective tissue damage more than anything muscularly” Do you have a reference for this?
I think it’s a good idea to learn to distinquish between normal post-exercise soreness and the pain that indicates that something has gone wrong in the last training.
In my experience, if you use the correct form and technique and warm-up well, injuries usually do not happen without warning, but rather are preceded by little signs that may be easy to confuse with the soreness that comes from training hard. This gives you time to back up a little bit with your training program to give your body the time to recover. So for a novice trainee it might be a good idea to spend a few weeks experimenting with different exercise volume and intensity just to learn how the body responds in terms of soreness.
Lyle i had a question,
Doing your generic bulking routine (and eating enough), i never made any strength gains at all. I followed it to the word, kept rests appropriate (i keep a stopwatch), and deloaded as well. However, my lifts did not increase by a single pound and would often decrease every other workout. I DID put on muscle mass though, no mistake about that.
Am i doing something wrong?
Thanks for your time
Lyle,
One way to limit the the symptoms associated with DOMS is to use a warm-up that’s dynamic in nature. This will help get the muscles better ready to react to whatever you may throw at them.
Most people seem to think that if they feel a bit sore the day after a workout it meant it was a success. This isn’t always the case. Sometimes, doing too much will stall any gains.
-Mitchell
Hi Lyle,
Nice post. My suggestion to add to the mix is that your article could be a recipe for over-training. Soreness is not just associated with connective tissue but also: lactic acid, muscle spasm, muscle damage, inflammation, enzyme efflux or more.
Definitely want to be careful before suggesting to people to just push though it. Though I tend to be an extremist and many people use a bit of soreness to not train at all. Knowing the individual person is a must.
Todd