jefftheshark

I have been reading about whether or not DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) is a good indicator of how effective your workout is. There seems to be quite a debate on the issue.

I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on this?

The Shark

Beaver

I haven't researched DOMS, but I think the soreness slowly reduces the longer you workout(months). I love the sore feeling though.

__________________
You can't climb the ladder of success with your hands in your pockets.

Zeno

Muscle fatigue is a greater measure of an effective workout over soreness.

Soreness is more prevelant when you first start working out a particular muscle group but continuous exercise reduce the amount of soreness you have over time.

jefftheshark

By muscle fatigue, do you mean lifting to failure?

My question comes from this: Last Friday I was working out and placed about 15% more weight on the leg press than usual. Over the couse of the last year I have increased the standard amount of weight on this machine by about 50%. I haven't experienced any muscle soreness in my legs for about a year, yet by Sunday my legs hurt so much I had trouble sleeping.

This got me to thinking, did the lack of soreness for the past year mean that I have been taking it too easy on myself?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

The Shark

Zeno

Yes, I meant to failure, I was going to edit it but I got lazy.

As for the leg thing, did you change anything about the routine? Maybe you changed the placement of your legs or feet? Worse yet you may have strained a muscle by lifting too much too soon. The only other thing I can think of is that the muscle soreness in your legs can also be attributed to you sweating more sodium out than you intake it has a name but I can't remember it, it causes really bad cramps in your legs especially(I used to have that problem).

Also if you are using the same leg press for a year, if possible, change your routine, go to squats or dealifts for awhile, then go back to the machine. Your body can get adjusted to the machine after awhile(some say as short as 3-4 weeks) and the exercise becomes less effective.

Legs are funny though, you can exercise them different, especially calves. You use them so often they recover really quickly. I have just started a new routine with my calves 10 calf press sets of 10 with 15 secs rest between reps (it was suggested in a recent Mens Health). Its a killer, after about set 6 you wanna give up--I do it everyday whether its a leg day or not--the expert in Mens Health suggested it, they just recover on my off days.

jefftheshark

Thanks for the detailed response.

As far as the soreness goes, I would guess that the answer is probably "too much, too soon". When you mentioned that in your post, I remembered that I usually get to the leg portion of the workout toward the middle, but that day I started on the leg press in order to mix it up a bit.

In the meantime I have done some research on Google and it appears that there is a good argument that DOMS is an indicator that you are ripping the muscle cells fairly well. Since this leads to growth, then it could be considered a good thing.

Hence the "no pain, no gain" mantra.

Thanks again.

The Shark