Do you have muscle soreness after exercise? How much muscle soreness is acceptable, and how much is too much? Should you deliberately seek out muscle soreness? Should you exercise if your muscles are sore?

All these questions, and others will be answered in this article. But first, let’s bust a few myths about soreness.

Original source: here.

Myth #1: Muscle Soreness is Caused by Too Much Lactic Acid in the Muscle

It used to be thought that muscle soreness is caused by lactic acid in the muscles. After all, towards the end of a set that had 8-20 reps, your muscles are burning. So you would think that the long-term effect (as in, days) of that burning would be muscle soreness. But it’s not true.

The lactic acid that is produced by your muscles is cleared from your blood and muscles within 1 hour of the workout. But you don’t feel sore until the next day.

So then, if it’s not lactic acid that causes the soreness, then what is it? It’s currently believed that it’s actually the mini muscle damage (called “microtrauma”) to the muscle and the surrounding connective tissue that happens during primarily strength training.

And that microtrauma is caused by mostly the eccentric contraction. What’s an eccentric contraction? In common gym terminology, it’s the “negative” of the move. For example, when you’re doing a biceps curl, on the way up, the biceps is shortening. But on the way down, the biceps is lengthening under tension. It’s this “lengthening under tension” part that’s called the “negative” or “eccentric.”

Myth #2: Stretching Helps Prevent or Relieve Muscle Soreness

It used to be thought that if you just stretched enough, you could avoid soreness. But study, after study, after study shows that stretching has no effect on muscle soreness. For some reason, stretching has this halo effect around it, that “stretching is good.” Stretching is neither good, nor bad. It’s a tool in the toolbox. There’s a right time to stretch, and a wrong time to stretch. There’s the right muscle to stretch, and the wrong muscle to stretch. There’s the right type of stretch, and the wrong type of stretch. And all those are based on both the person, and their situation.

But this isn’t an article about stretching. I’ve written lots of those in the past, and if you want to delve into that area, check out these articles:

Stretching Exercises: You’re Doing Them Wrong

Stretching Exercises: When and How to Do Them

Stretching Exercises: Myths and Misconceptions

Do Your Joints Need Some Oiling?

How Much Muscle Soreness is Acceptable and How Much is Too Much?

You shouldn’t deliberately seek out muscle soreness. It should be more a byproduct of your exercise. But it also shouldn’t happen after every single workout. Generally speaking, when a personal training client starts a new program with us, I expect soreness for 2-4 days afterwards. It should be a little sore the next day, peak around 2 days later, decrease on the third day, and either be completely gone, or almost completely gone by the fourth day.

That’s a healthy, normal level of soreness.

It’s too much when it goes beyond about 4 days. In that case, you know you overdid it.

And again, soreness should really only be experienced after the first 1-3 workouts on a new program. After that, even if the weights get heavier, and the reps go higher, you should no longer be feeling sore.

Which brings me to another point. After all, if a lighter weight made you sore, shouldn’t a heavier weight make you feel more sore? The answer is “no.” Not once you’ve adapted to it. The reason is that soreness is more related to doing new things, as opposed to doing familiar things with greater difficulty. So even a very fit person will be sore after performing an exercise that s/he hasn’t done ever, or in a long time.

A special note when these rules are slightly modified is for people on cholesterol medications (specifically statins, like Crestor, Lipitor, etc.). In these folks, soreness may be more pronounced, it might last longer, and it might go beyond the first 1-3 workouts.

But that effect tends to decrease if they combine the medication with Coenzyme Q10.

Should You Deliberately Seek Out Muscle Soreness?

There are certain times to deliberately seek out soreness. But in 95% of cases, I’d say that there’s no reason to specifically seek it out. So what are the 5% of cases where you should seek it out? Just to know if you’re working the right muscles. For instance, in a squat, you may think you’re working your glutes (butt muscles), but if you don’t get sore, you don’t really know for sure. However, if you deliberately push to the point of soreness, and the next day you notice that only your quads are sore, then you know that either your squatting technique is not good enough to work the glutes, or your glutes just aren’t contributing much to your squat. You don’t know that without soreness.

Other than that, there’s not much of a purpose to deliberately seek out the soreness. If it happens, it happens, and if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. Muscle soreness is not at all a sign of progress, and it definitely doesn’t tell you whether a workout was effective or not. In fact, at a high level, athletes seek to avoid soreness, because they know that if they’re sore, they can’t perform at their sport as effectively as if they weren’t sore.

Should You Exercise if Your Muscles Are Sore?

It would depend on the degree of soreness. If you have normal soreness, yes, working out is good. In fact, doing light exercise, will speed up your recovery from soreness more than doing nothing. This is because you stimulate blood flow, and blood brings nutrients to the target muscles, which speeds up recovery.

However, if you exercised to the point where your soreness is abnormal, in those cases, it may be advisable to take a couple of days off completely, and perform some recovery activities, like a bath, massage, etc.

You Overdid It – Now What?

So you exercised beyond the point of normal soreness. Your muscles are really hurting, and it might take you more than 4 days to recovery. Range of motion is impaired, you feel those muscles even when not using them, and it’s just uncomfortable. What can you do at that point? A few things:

  1. Take HMB. HMB is hydroxymethylbutyrate (and because of that name, it’s why we just call it “HMB”). It helps you speed up recovery. The best time to take it is immediately after the workout, before you even feel sore. My favorite product is HMB complex by Genestra. And no, I have no financial affiliation with them. And if you’re crazy sore, I would take this twice per day.

  2. Take vitamin C. Ordinarily, I don’t recommend vitamin C within 4 hours of a workout, because it decreases the effect of the workout. But this is not within 4 hours. This is likely the next day. My favourite product for this is AOR’s TLC 3.0. Again, no financial affiliation with them.

  3. Go for a massage. This stimulates blood flow to the hurting muscles.