How You Should View Getting Sore From Training

Podcast Transcript

Jerred: 

 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Garage Gym Athlete Podcast. Today I'm going, going over a study that is an oldie but a goodie when we are talking about whether or not you need to be sore and can you still see progress when it comes to muscle growth, overall strength gains, uh, because here's the issue that I have seen as a coach over the years, and it repeats itself over and over again.

And maybe you have friends in this category or maybe you're in this category. But a lot of times training comes in waves. Like we have an athlete who has a really good consistent schedule and they're doing really well, but then they back off. Or maybe they back off from that type of training. They go from strength training to endurance, and then when they come back, they're very, very sore because they're trying to jump in with the same stuff that they were doing previously.

And that's fine. Muscle soreness is muscle soreness. It's really not that big of a deal, but. When that muscle, muscle soreness is so damaging that it makes an athlete or someone trying to get into fitness, not wanna continue the training, that's a problem. And so when you're so sore, you're like skipping days, you know, supposed to be a four day a week program, but you're so sore, you can only do one or two days a week.

This would be for the kind of beginner athlete who's trying to get into things. That's a big problem. Um, another problem is. When you're incredibly sore, it could also just limit how well you're actually performing exercises, whether there's a speed element or whatever the case is. You're not truly optimally just kind of going through the motions.

And so the stu the, the question has always been like, is it necessary? And I know as I've walked many family members through this and athletes who are just starting, um, they tend to get rid of the so and so if, if we just jump right into a program. So you have one of two ways to go through this, and I have the research to back it up.

I'm gonna tell you just kind of what this study is, but like, I'm not, I'm not gonna really dive too much into this study. I just want you to know, like what I'm talking about, how's a lot of, uh, you know, science behind it. This isn't the only study either, but when you get in, when you're starting a new program, you can just jump right into it and be heli sore and just deal with it, right?

Um, I would argue or urge you not to take. Ibuprofen. You know, don't worry too much about the recco recovery modalities. I've been talking about that a lot lately on the podcast. So you just get incredibly sore, you deal with it, and maybe two to three weeks you're, you're fine. And then you could just do whatever the training is that you wanna do.

You know, the other option is to go very slow into the training. And the big question is like, okay, well if I'm doing 50% volume, then what I'm supposed to be doing, like am I still seeing results? What this study did, the name of the study is from 2011. It's called Muscle Damage and Muscle Remodeling. No Pain, no Gain Question mark.

Um, like if there's no pain, is there no gain? And it had women and men, and they performed eccentric cycling for either eight or 11 weeks. Both groups completed the same total workload, but the 11 week group performed a three week ramp up period to prepare for the main training program in an effort to avoid detectable muscle damage and soreness.

So same program. Both completed eight weeks of the same program. However, the 11 week protocol had basically an on-ramp program. So they just were going through some of the motions and then ultimately they didn't have like any perception of soreness as they went through the program, or it wasn't like significant.

And then when you get into like, okay, so they did this really slow three week on-ramp program, then they did the program, you know, kind of what were the results? Well, ultimately the. 11 week program, the increase in strength was 24.8%. The eight week program was 25.8%, which is not really significantly different in any true measure.

And then they looked at increase in quadricep muscle volumes. How big, how much bigger did the, the quads get? Now, these people were coming from untrained, but the 11 week was a 6.5% increase, and the eight week was 7.5% increase. Again, not significant between the groups. And then really there were no further like markers that that mattered.

So we're looking about a 1% difference. And the eight week group, 'cause again, all the athletes in the study were new to training, had significant levels of soreness at the beginning of the program. Now they continued on the program because it was part of the study, but they had to go through that muscle soreness.

Now I'm not here to say, you know. You don't be sore like you, you can be sore and just, and tear through it. But if you don't have that mentality or you know, somebody who is trying to get into fitness, my recommendation, 'cause ultimately what I want on this planet more than anything else, is for more people to exercise, train, eat healthy, be healthy, and be better human being.

I mean, I feel like that's my mission in life, but I have seen this play out over and over again. So you're either an athlete listening to this. Or you know, somebody in your life who has fallen into this category where they start and then they can't continue because they're getting too sore. And that's really the only reason I'm doing this podcast is to let you know that you can do an on-ramp program and you will see the same results.

It sounds so silly, like most coaches and athletes know this, but start at a 50% reduction of whatever the volume of the program is that you want 'em to be doing. So if the, you know, a very like. Easy approach to this is if you are gonna start bench pressing on Monday and the program said that you should do six sets of 10 reps, do three sets of 10 reps, or just do half the, um, intensity.

So if they were saying, yeah, do that at 70% of your one run max, do it at 40. You know, like, do it at 35. Don't worry so much about the weight and, and when you progress slowly, like this is how you actually see progress. I. If you're getting really sore to where you can't continue, that's not good for you.

It's not good for, for anyone, you know, and I translate this to also, uh, training my, my kids and, and I've talked about that a decent amount on the podcast over the last year or so. So when I'm training my kids, we start off crazy slow and I'm always like, that's one of the factors that I'm looking at is.

Are they telling me that they're really sore? You know, I'm checking in the next day, the next couple of days because I don't want these, this massive amount of doms with my kids. Not because I think it's dangerous or anything. I just need them to keep in the game. I want 'em to stay in the game, and I want them to realize exercise doesn't have to be this thing where you completely destroy your body.

You have all this muscle soreness, and then you just have to slug through it while there's a certain level of, uh. Mental toughness and grit that can be built that way. There are also a lot of other ways to build that mental toughness and grit. So whether you're training your kids, training yourself, or you're introducing things to a family member, I just want everyone to know that you can go slow, go much slower than you feel like you have to on-ramp.

Slowly. In our garage ly uh, program, we have something called the Human Program, and we very intentionally, I very intentionally built this program. To introduce different zones of energy training, different energy systems and different heart rate zones of training to work someone up over the course of eight weeks.

So they are just fully ready for the highest volume they could be. Like we could throw at them in the hard to kill track if they were to just follow these simple modalities when they're getting into their new program. So if you wanna be a part of that. Sign up for our program, go do the human program first.

If you're just getting into things, and then if you are, you know, trying to train somebody, you have someone in your life who, who needs to be getting into fitness, have them start so fricking small. Like I, I I talk a lot about this in, in building habits, like start as small as you possibly can. That's true for building any kind of habit.

It's true for any kind of program. Just take the long view here of your training and your fitness and your health. Take the long view. Like if you only did one set today and then you know in two days you did two sets and you just slowly built over time, you're gonna be so much better off than anything else, and the science backs up that it's not gonna hurt your strength gains and it's not gonna hurt your muscle gains.

You could just extend the program out a little bit longer and you're gonna be perfectly fine. So that is all I wanted to get on and talk about in this podcast today. Something you very easily implement either yourself or with your loved ones or even your kids. There's no reason for that ridiculous soreness that prevents people from continuing in the game.

And the only game in the health and fitness world is to keep playing the game. It doesn't matter how fast or strong you are in all reality, it just matters that you keep doing it and keep trying hard. Alright? If you wanna be a part of our training or you wanna be doing the human program, the onboarding program.

The On-Ramp program we have, you can go to garage gym athlete.com, sign up for a free trial. We'd love to have you for all of our athletes out there doing it. Some of you are well accustomed to our volume and everything else. Really appreciate you. Share this podcast with somebody who wants to hear it and let them know that, hey, it's okay to go slow, and that might be all that you need to do right now.

But that's it for this one. Remember, you don't kill Comfort. Comfort will kill you.