IT'S THE DAY after leg day and you're having a hard time walking. And taking the stairs. And standing up from sitting.
You're extremely sore, and it's difficult to do just about anything. That must mean you had a great workout.
If you've spent most of your life evaluating the efficacy of your workouts on the level of pain you feel on the days afterward, you're not alone.
As your body adapts to the exercise you're doing, your threshold for soreness increases. That means you need to do more and more every single time to reach that level of soreness.
"Workouts get longer, or workout intensity gets harder and harder," Samuel says. "Training more intensely without any regard for anything but soreness could lead to injury
It could also cause you to alter your form. If you're so sore that specific movements hurt, you're likely going to tweak the way you're moving to avoid pain
That way, you're able to really push yourself and push your heaviest weights. If you're always chasing soreness, odds are you never feel fully recovered.