Comment by kelnos

Comment by kelnos 17 hours ago

9 replies

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There's a difference between soreness and pain. My muscles get sore all the time from exercise, but it's not painful. That soreness just tells me I'm probably going to be a little bit stronger because of the exercise I just did. (Of course it's a continuum: certain higher levels of soreness mean I probably overdid it.)

Joint pain is a whole other thing, though. Usually joint pain means that you're doing some sort of exercise incorrectly, or that you're using too much weight or intensity for your current level of physical fitness. Or you have a previous injury that can't fully heal and there are some exercises that you just shouldn't be doing, but you do them anyway.

But I think the author is talking about less pain in a different way. For example, I threw out my lower back 25 years ago in college, and it's never been the same since. But doing core exercises and strengthening the muscles around that area means much less chance of pain doing regular day-to-day activities.

ruslan_sure 16 hours ago

Soreness isn't ideal. It won't make you stronger. Actually, it might make your recovery slower.

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  • fercircularbuf 16 hours ago

    First time I've ever heard that soreness = something wrong. Isn't soreness basically guaranteed to some degree if you've done enough work to actually build strength?

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    • hatefulmoron 15 hours ago

      > Isn't soreness basically guaranteed to some degree if you've done enough work to actually build strength?

      Not really. If you're eating/sleeping well and training consistently it's completely normal to not feel soreness (that is, excluding the immediate discomfort that rapidly subsides). I can't speak for all forms of exercise, but certainly it's normal when lifting weights, even to failure.

      That said, if you're just starting out you will notice a lot of soreness. Many people look back on the early DOMS and wish they could feel that sort of "positive feedback" again.

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      • FredPret 15 hours ago

        I noticed that two things make my DOMS disappear like magic:

        - eating an shocking amount of spinach (works much better than a magnesium pill)

        - some sort of light cardio of the affected muscles after lifting

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    • beingfit 16 hours ago

      It depends. But as GP also said, it can be because one is not exercising (that part of the body) regularly. Anecdotally, I have seen that soreness is not really observed when exercising regularly. Some aches and a little fatigue? Probably. But not really muscle soreness.

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    • ruslan_sure 15 hours ago

      I suggest reading or listening to Dr. Andy Galpin on this topic.

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scotty79 14 hours ago

> There's a difference between soreness and pain.

Sorry, but overexerted muscle feels exactly the same for me as the one hit with something hard and heavy or one that received a dozen injections that had a bit of tissue damage as a side effect.

> Usually joint pain means that you're doing some sort of exercise incorrectly

Joint and ligament pain means that you do too much of exactly what you are doing and you should do something at least a bit different. There's no such thing as correct or incorrect. You can do literally anything, just not too much. You only need to be careful because for some movements in some people 1 rep is too much already.

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