Tip: Don't Use Soreness to Judge Workout Effectiveness Search Skip to content Menu Menu follow us Store Articles Community Loyal-T Club Loyal-T Points Rewards Subscribe to Save Search Search The World s Trusted Source & Community for Elite Fitness Training Tip Don t Use Soreness to Judge Workout Effectiveness You can get sore and not make progress And you can make progress and not get sore Here are the facts by Christian Thibaudeau December 20, 2015September 21, 2021 Tags Tips, Training The facts Getting really sore after lifting weights doesn't necessarily mean that you had a good workout that will lead to gains. Even if you aren't sore it doesn't mean that your workout wasn't optimal. But if you aren't at least a bit tight or have an enhanced "feeling" of the muscle you worked, it's possible that your workout wasn't as effective as it could have been. Excessive soreness can cause issues with performance by reducing mobility and/or strength. Too much soreness can interfere with the productivity of a workout. So Can I Train a Muscle That s Still Sore There are several degrees of soreness. Sometimes a muscle can feel a bit tender but there isn't any muscle swelling. The muscle merely looks and feels a bit harder than usual. There may be a little tenderness, but there's no real loss of mobility or strength. Other times the soreness can be so debilitating that your mobility and strength are severely limited. In this case, the soreness has become limitative; it's a mistake to train that muscle hard again. Now, if the soreness isn't so intense that it hinders your capacity to perform at an adequate level, it's perfectly possible – and even advisable – to train using exercises involving the sore muscles. Why? Because an increase in blood flow and nutrient transport to the muscle can speed up recovery. Performing a feeder session the day after an intense workout is very effective. By "feeder session" I mean doing pump work for the sore muscles – light-ish work focusing on the quality of the contraction and establishing a pump. This will not further damage the tissue but will increase its speed of recovery and repair by increasing nutrient uptake and protein synthesis (and also a host of other benefits involving cytokines and the repair process). One idea is to do hard strength work on a basic lift on one day and isolation work for the muscles involved in that lift at the beginning of the next day's workout. Get The T Nation Newsletters Don' t Miss Out Expert Insights To Get Stronger, Gain Muscle Faster, And Take Your Lifting To The Next Level related posts Training Why CrossFit Women Are Stronger Than You Many CrossFit women can lift a ton of weight while sporting six-pack abs without dieting. Sound like you? Probably not. Here's why. CrossFit, Strength & Conditioning Charles Staley July 16 Training Do the Big Lifts Every Day If it's important, do it every day. But how do you program the big lifts daily and not crash? Like this. Bodybuilding, Powerlifting & Strength, Training Todd Bumgardner August 15 Training Explosive Days for Muscle and Strength Training to be explosive is a triple win: you get stronger, bigger, and leaner at the same time. Here’s how to do it. Bodybuilding, Powerlifting & Strength, Training Lee Boyce July 31 Training Tip Use Isometric Holds to Master Pull-Ups You should be able to do pull-ups with as much weight (including bodyweight) as you can bench press. If not, this will help. Tips, Training Ben Bruno February 23