Is Muscle Soreness a Sign of Muscle Growth — And How Do Nashville Lifters Actually Reduce It?

If you train at a commercial gym, you’ve probably wondered whether a workout counted when you weren’t sore the next day. A lot of lifters treat soreness as proof that they worked hard enough. The harder it is to walk down the stairs after leg day, the better the workout must have been.

I have a client who is used to CrossFit and HIIT-style training. Each week he notices that he’s getting stronger and continuing to progress. What he doesn’t notice anymore is the fatigue he used to feel. What he’s learning is that fatigue doesn’t equal progress.

Is Soreness a Good Indicator for Muscle Growth?

Soreness is not a reliable sign that your muscles are growing. Brad Schoenfeld and Bret Contreras looked at this exact question in the Strength and Conditioning Journal and concluded that soreness after training isn’t a reliable way to measure muscle growth.¹ They also point out that soreness mostly shows up when you do something your body isn’t used to or push harder than usual.¹ That could be a new exercise, a new program, or a big jump in volume. As you keep repeating the same training, the soreness fades even though you can still be making progress.

Most of the soreness we feel after lifting is Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (“DOMS”). A review by Wilke and Behringer suggests DOMS is a product of inflammation caused by microscopic tears in the connective tissue and not necessarily the muscle itself.² The reason this is so painful is that connective tissue is packed with pain-sensing nerve endings and is more sensitive to pain than the muscle fibers themselves.²

Why Chasing Soreness Works Against You

If every session is built to leave you wrecked, you spend half the week recovering instead of training. Your next few sessions suffer because of it, and over time your progress stalls.

Judge your training by whether your volume is increasing and whether you’re recovering well enough to complete the next tough session.

How to Reduce Muscle Soreness

Some soreness is inevitable but it shouldn't be what you're chasing. When you are sore, here's what you should focus on:

✅ Sleep: get consistent, quality sleep (7-8 hours per night) so your body has time to recover between sessions

✅ Nutrition: eat enough to recover from the work you’re putting in, with protein as part of it

✅ Active recovery: keep moving on your off days with something light like a walk or an easy bike ride

✅ Bodywork: get hands-on soft tissue work to help your muscles recover between sessions

A large review of recovery methods by Dupuy and colleagues found that active recovery and massage/bodywork both reduced soreness after exercise. Massage was the most effective method for reducing both soreness and fatigue.³

Recovering From Muscle Soreness After a Workout in Nashville

If you’re dealing with muscle soreness after a workout in Nashville, massage is the recovery method Dupuy’s review found worked best.³ My sessions at BBPS are designed to help you recover better so you can perform at your best.

Train hard. Recover smarter.

Book a Recovery Session → https://www.vagaro.com/bigburdperformancesystems/services

Sources

¹ Schoenfeld BJ, Contreras B. Is postexercise muscle soreness a valid indicator of muscular adaptations? Strength Cond J. 2013;35(5):16-21. https://journals.lww.com/nsca-scj/fulltext/2013/10000/is_postexercise_muscle_soreness_a_valid_indicator.2.aspx

² Wilke J, Behringer M. Is “delayed onset muscle soreness” a false friend? The potential implication of the fascial connective tissue in post-exercise discomfort. Int J Mol Sci. 2021;22(17):9482. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8431437/

³ Dupuy O, Douzi W, Theurot D, Bosquet L, Dugué B. An evidence-based approach for choosing post-exercise recovery techniques to reduce markers of muscle damage, soreness, fatigue, and inflammation: a systematic review with meta-analysis. Front Physiol. 2018;9:403. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5932411/