I have been doing weight training for years on a schedule of three times a week, doing all major muscle groups each time, about 12 different exercises. I would rotate emphasis, so that each time I would be picking 4-5 of those to do 3 sets each. Often, the parts that got the extra sets would have delayed-onset muscle soreness the next day or so.
Now I am doing split sets, working out 2-3 days in a row before I take a day off. Each workout does multiple sets of the part for that day’s focus.
So for example, under the old schedule over the course of a week I would do two workouts with one set each of leg exercises, then one more workout with three sets of leg exercises. Now I am doing three sets of leg exercises 2-3 times per week.
But I don’t get sore anymore. At all.
It seems counterintuitive that a more intense workout routine would result in less soreness. Is there a known explanation for this?
In my experience, muscles only get sore from unaccustomed activity. I bicycle a lot, as in 30 miles/day 5 or 6 days a week and include steep hills in almost every ride. My muscles never get sore.[sup]1[/sup] Well, they get a little bit sore if I do an exceptionally long ride (say 45 or 50 miles), because that’s unaccustomed activity.
So I would say that increasing the frequency of your workouts means that the activity is no longer unaccustomed to those muscles.
[sup]1[/sup] When I describe my workouts to other people, the most common response is something about sore muscles. But that’s what they’d get from doing it and they’re assuming it applies to me too.
Another vote for the explanation. It is the standard official line about DOMS: risks include unaccustomed/novel activity and more “eccentric” activity.
Makes sense, thanks for the responses. Generally it is said that to stimulate muscle hypertrophy you have to vary the exercise. If my muscles are getting so accustomed to these exercises, then I wonder if I have to mix things up a bit more. For each muscle group I rotate through three different exercises on three consecutive workouts, so for example I might do three workouts for leg and core, three workouts for upper body and arms, for a total of six workouts going through the whole cycle in maybe 8-9 days.
:eek: I can’t run distances up to 75 miles and still have a pulse.
Well it is widely accepted that constantly working out the same exact way is less effective than some “periodization”, or varying of the sort of work out in various ways. But using DOMS as a marker for that is at least somewhat controversial. (EIMD = Exercise induced muscle damage)