Is soreness necessary for muscle to increase in strength and mass?
This is one of those gym maxims that has been around for as long as I can remember. Many athletes training with weights feel that they havent had a good workout if their muscles arent sore the next day. I would not say exactly that soreness is necessary, but there may be some truth underlying this maxim. Soreness almost certainly doesnt positively affect gain in strength, but soreness is a symptom related to microinjury. It is entirely possible that the microinjury stresses the muscle to build up more muscle tissue. It certainly fits with the Overload Principle: Tissue adapts to an overload so that it can better handle that stress in the future. If so, then the soreness is simply a symptom that there has been substantial microinjury and overload stress. I find it hard to believe, however, that a workout that doesnt induce soreness provides no overload. A related point: Since the DMS syndrome is more likely to be caused by eccentric contractions than by concentric contractions, and if m
