Have you ever had a squat workout where your legs DIDN'T get sore?

[MantisShrimp]

I been squatting since October, and it occurred to me that for some reason legs are different from upper body, at least in my case. Whereas sometimes I will not always get sore in the upper body, every time I squat I end up having difficulty walking for a few days. Maybe I squat harder than I bench/pullup/etc, but I don't rly think so. Srsly I work usually with 225x5 sets and the other day I dropped down to 185 for a "light" day and I still can't friggin walk today. Anyone else have this problem?

[Brandon2286]

dude i feel you on that i have the same issue there a bitch just stuff some glutamine down your throat as soon as you can and keep at it that seems to help me alot i walked all bow legged for a few days at work and they were teasing me haha

[shinobidoode]

I play basketball and do alot of cardio, and the leg soreness does create an issue for me. I been going every other week just cus of that reason. My friend told me to do some cardio and stretches afterwards to prevent soreness the next day. I'm going to incorporate it to my next leg workout and see how it turns out.

[Ayemelek]

Guess I must be lucky - I've never gotten sore anywhere after my first workout.

[Ageispolis]

I get sore for a few weeks and then I'll have to change up the routine for other reasons and then Mr. Lactic Acid comes back for a friendly hello. I get more cramps than I get sore, and damn, that's ten times worse. One time I got a cramp in my ham while I was practicing life guarding techniques in the pool with a really hot girl. She laughed at me when I was yelling and told me I was lying and trying to cover up a hard on.

[segment]

My body seems to adapt to anything I throw at it. After the work workout of that muscle group and I'll never get that sore again no matter how hard I pound those muscles.

[rockhuddy]

Squatting (for singles and doubles) never makes me sore; it's the other leg work that does it for me. So high rep stuff = sore, low rep stuff = ok for me.

[MantisShrimp]

dude i feel you on that i have the same issue there a bitch just stuff some glutamine down your throat as soon as you can and keep at it that seems to help me alot i walked all bow legged for a few days at work and they were teasing me haha

Yeah people probably think you either have to take a massive ****, or you got cornholed by a gay lover.
It's kinda embarrassing. And getting off the toilet--OW it's like a box squat spawn of satan

[MantisShrimp]

I get sore for a few weeks and then I'll have to change up the routine for other reasons and then Mr. Lactic Acid comes back for a friendly hello. I get more cramps than I get sore, and damn, that's ten times worse. One time I got a cramp in my ham while I was practicing life guarding techniques in the pool with a really hot girl. She laughed at me when I was yelling and told me I was lying and trying to cover up a hard on.

That's when you tell her that an immediate rubdown is necessary, or else you'll drown!

[Canadian Iron]

DOMS/soreness is not in any way related to a good or stimulative workout. It is however very much related to conditioning. The more time you take between performing an exercise again the less accustomed your body is to it and the more sore you will get (i.e. do an exercise you haven't done in a while and you will get sore). Also, much higher volume than you are accustomed too will get you sore. A lot of BBers here seem to train using a 1x per week frequency on a bodypart (or lift). They get pretty sore when changing their exercises and gradually this becomes just a standard normal soreness week to week (for some it will completely disappear, for other not at this frequency). The more often you train the less sore you will get. A popular program is the 5x5 where you are squatting 3x per week. People are typically not sore once they get accustomed to that frequency, yet they put on a lot of muscle and their strength in the squat skyrockets. A good point to make is that 1x per week frequency is a really ****ty default as frequency is an important variable and can be used very advantageously. Most people who provide reasons for training a muscle 1x per week during the majority of the year have a very poor understanding of exercise science, the central nervous system, fatigue, supercompensation, and muscular recovery.

Moral - DOMS is inconsequential to your long term progress. Ignore it or if you are too sore to train safely (i.e. sore to the touch) do very light recovery work to get blood in the muscle and get back sooner.

Doms is more related to conditioning than anything else. Increasing frequency will tend to prevent severe Doms and even eliminate it (btw - you need to account for workload over a period so don't do your 1x per week 5x5@85% 3x a week and instantly triple your workload). Infrequent training leads to more severe DOMS (i.e. when you start working out after a long layoff or even change exercises to something you haven't been doing). Doms is not in any way an indicator of a successful or stimulative workout - consider it an uncorrelated outcome. As far as 'recovery' you are never really recovered 100% (complete tissue remodeling takes a long time), protein turnover returns to baseline in a couple of days, the limiting factor in weight training tends to be the nervous system rather than the muscle tissue (and overtraining is all about the nervous system and is systemic rather than working your biceps too often).

Soreness doesn't mean **** and largely disappears once someone is conditioned properly - for those that are always sore...yeah, frequency is too low and the load becomes too inconsistent to even get conditioned. If someone tells you otherwise, smile and run the other way because this is well known and basic outside of BBing/Gymrat circles. I'm not going to get into whether this makes certain training methodologies invalid or whatever but be assured that DOMS is not an indicator of a good or successful workout/stimulus. Many many programs result in excellent gains without any type of repeated soreness workout to workout and this hold true all the way through to the highest levels of elite athletics.

Here's a bit more on the theories behind DOMS as it's still not 100% understood exactly what the soreness stems from: http://www.fortifiediron.net/invisio...howtopic=23534

Just to hammer home the above, if one is using a properly balanced program (i.e. volume, frequency, intensity) DOMS/soreness will not be a factor once an athlete is adequately conditioned. The fact that many people get sore consistently workout to workout is more a statement about them lacking conditioning and their program being out of balance in one or more of the above factors rather than actual recuperation. Hence they never get conditioned - usually frequency is too low and volume in a single workout relatively high (good way to get sore consistently, bad way to program training for progress on a consistent basis).

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[dbcb314]

i am rarely ever sore squatting, unless i am just coming back off of a lay off...

[mastergrim8]

Well, once my legs don't get sore after a squat workout, i know it's time for new weights.

[W8isGR8]

I been squatting since October, and it occurred to me that for some reason legs are different from upper body, at least in my case. Whereas sometimes I will not always get sore in the upper body, every time I squat I end up having difficulty walking for a few days. Maybe I squat harder than I bench/pullup/etc, but I don't rly think so. Srsly I work usually with 225x5 sets and the other day I dropped down to 185 for a "light" day and I still can't friggin walk today. Anyone else have this problem?

no

[MantisShrimp]

no

Bastard!!!!!

[mike_d]

I squatted yesterday and I'm fine right now. I even jogged after my workout.

Just a bit of lower back soreness. I'm going for a bike ride in a bit.

[RippedGuitarist]

Hmm.. Deadlifts, Squats, Pullups, Rows etc. yesterday and I'm not sore. I think I like this twice a week stuff. I now understand Madcow2's response and agree. Frankly I'm not gonna miss the hobbling around.

[Ace_frehly]

I've been doing ripptoe's program for 9 weeks now and I was real sore from squats the first week. I don't really get sore any more from squats and I am often setting a PR 3 times a week. I may get tired or a little tight but I usually am not sore. I think this soreness you are getting is a call to take a look at your program and make some changes.
And to the gentleman who says that if he isn't sore from a workout, then he should have lifted more is not giving you good advice. I think its a poor plan that constantly pushes your body to the limit every workout. There will be times you need to back down or take time off to recover.

[ripped_holla]

I did Bill Starr's 5x5 for several months. After the first couple weeks I stopped getting sore after squatting. Mind you I was squatting 3x a week on that program so I adapted pretty quickly to that much workload.

[jpars]

Hm.

Whenver i havent lifted in weeks or months and start up again, i take a really light week. I mean 8 reps on everything, with weights i could do 12 of. I am always sore for 2 days after with every muscle group. its like my break in period. If i just slam it first day out in a long time, i literally cant move.

The light week helps me readapt to lifting. after that, soreness drops down to about 1 day, and within 3 weeks, i cant get sore, no matter how much i lift.

The exception to this rule is trying things you have never done before. A guy at the gym i know who weights about 100 pounds less then me was doing Smith Machine one legged lunges. I was in the middle of a squat/legpress/ calf raise leg day. It was mundane, i am sick of my leg days, bore me to tears even if i lift hard.

So i hop on the smith, double his weight, he shows me the good form, i crank out 8 reps on each leg for 4 sets. Drop reps to 6 and up weight for last set.

I cant walk and i love it. Squats never give me anything like this- its variety that does. Embrace the soreness, it means your working hard.


also.............get a good creatine, and say hello to recovery and a new world

[passerby]

I'm on Rippetoe's Starting Strength, squatting 3x a week. Legs don't get sore anymore, but that's cool as long as the squat gets stronger and the legs grow

[Lifeforce]

I almost never get sore when squatting, 20 repers sometimes do it for me but that's seldom.