Intro: I read a post the other day on this sub that was essentially urging people to train until they’re extremely sore. This is terrible advice that could even hinder your gains or the way you train and should not be heeded at all.

Body: Brad Schoenfeld, who holds a PhD in exercise science, put out a paper in 2013 that studied the effect of DOMS on muscular adaptation. You can read that piece online (https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/72d4/947f03f2879bbf3531759b525ebcd2a0aa50.pdf?_ga=2.20288824.145494800.1542817449-1554432633.1542817449). Yesterday, he also made an Instagram post citing some key points from the study.

  • There is a poor correlation between DOMS and EIMD (exercise-induced muscular damage).

A study by Warren et. al in 1999 found that pain did not correlate well with muscle damage (having trouble finding that study). Another study by Nosaka et. al in 2002 found that DOMS is a “poor reflector of... exercise-induced muscle damage” (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/12453160/). Finally, Yu et. al in 2004 found evidence of myofibril remodeling rather than damage as a result of DOMS (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ji-Guo_Yu/publication/7449727_Evidence_for_myofibril_remodeling_as_opposed_to_myofibril_damage_in_human_muscles_with_DOMS_An_ultrastructural_and_immunoelectron_microscopic_study/links/0fcfd50ff9cf93ca2d000000.pdf).

  • There may be a genetic component to DOMS where some people barely get sore while other get REALLY sore.

For example, I’ve been training for well over a year, and I can’t remember the last time I’ve experienced DOMS; since revamping my training, I’ve increased all my lifts by 15 lbs in a month. On the contrary, a lot of people I see lift tend to feel a stupid amount of DOMS and have gone to the gym longer than I have.

  • High levels of soreness indicate that you’ve exceeded the capacity to repair muscle, impede your training, and decrease motivation to train.

Volume matters. If you’re not training optimally at consistently high levels, then you will inevitably experience lesser gains than someone who is. By being overly sore, you won’t be able to lift for high levels of volume. I’m a personal example of this. My training used to suck over the past year. I had set up a program for myself that ultimately spelled disaster. I wasn’t training optimally, but was training at what I considered high levels. Once I revamped my entire routine, I’ve made much better muscular gains while on a cut, and have begun to appear bigger. I train in half the time I used to but still have made much more significant progress in a fraction of the time. Volume matters, soreness doesn’t.

Lessons Learned
* Lesson 1: Extreme pain does not result in gains. * Lesson 2: Mild degrees of soreness, according to Brad, are acceptable.
* Lesson 3: You can still have a good workout without being sore as hell afterwards. * Bonus Lesson: Assess your progress on lifts by comparing them using www.strengthlevel.com.