Since I started running cycles 2 years ago I almost never get DOMS anymore, regardless of training load., If I do it's very mild. Is this normal?

[Slowww]

I get DOMS after every fucking session in a surplus
In a cut my loads that are being lifted get lower (because even if psychologically i am pushing, high RPE to failure, my body just isn’t performing it’s best)
In surplus my loads rapidly increase even though volume and intensity is basically the same, and they continue to increase in the surplus so DOMS are pretty consistent. Especially rebound it’s really severe, because strength increases are drastic out of depleted state.

 

[egruberman]

Oh and DOMS is used kind of retarted.... Ot does not mean you can't fkin move the next day....you just feel like the muscle was stressed and you weren't just moving weights around like a puppet

For me, it's not the next day, but the following. When it hits, I can hardly walk. It only comes after a break or a period when I'm doing insufficient volume. Typically it happens on heavier sets of 5-8 reps, presuming maximal intensity for that rep range. For me, it qualifies as DOMS if I can't hit the same intensity or make progress for that exercise on the following week.

As a distinction, my pecs suck coz genetics so I hit 'em twice a week. They're always sore, but I can make progress.

 

[narta]

If you're not having DOMS or feeling sore, how can you know when your muscles recover or not?

Can you add a rep or weight in the next session? If yes, it recovered. If no, then not.

 

[Eddie.]

I get DOMS after every fucking session in a surplus
In a cut my loads that are being lifted get lower (because even if psychologically i am pushing, high RPE to failure, my body just isn’t performing it’s best)
In surplus my loads rapidly increase even though volume and intensity is basically the same, and they continue to increase in the surplus so DOMS are pretty consistent. Especially rebound it’s really severe, because strength increases are drastic out of depleted state.

Nice to hear this, i thought i was the only one. If i haven't done bloodwork i'd think my gear is fake because i'm having a hard time recovering lol

Can you add a rep or weight in the next session? If yes, it recovered. If no, then not.

After 20 years of training i don't always chase an extra rep or weight, it's just not possible to keep doing in each session. I'm focusing on better contraction, slower reps, pause at the bottom and of course extra reps and weight here n there but i'm not beating the log book. I'm already butchered from shoulders to knees haha

 

[bigMoJo]

I'm focusing on better contraction, slower reps, pause at the bottom and of course extra reps and weight here n there but i'm not beating the log book.

You bring up an interesting point. On some lifts, an increase in weight or added rep(s) is quantifiable "progressive overload," hence recovery/growth. What about same weight from the week before, but this week with slower eccentric? Is it a gain? A pause rep with the same weight/same rep you couldn't the week before is "progress," right? I track that type of progress on the notes in my app.

For me DOMS is it's worst and/or doen't appear until around 48 hours after.

 

[BuildABro]

You bring up an interesting point. On some lifts, an increase in weight or added rep(s) is quantifiable "progressive overload," hence recovery/growth. What about same weight from the week before, but this week with slower eccentric? Is it a gain? A pause rep with the same weight/same rep you couldn't the week before is "progress," right? I track that type of progress on the notes in my app.

For me DOMS is it's worst and/or doen't appear until around 48 hours after.

I tend to draw a distinction between feeling “tender” which for me is pretty much a constant state in some part of my body, and DOMS which is painful to the point where I can’t train that muscle group until it resolves.

The latter just is not as much of an issue for me at all since gear entered my life. On cycle in particular

 

[Slowww]

You bring up an interesting point. On some lifts, an increase in weight or added rep(s) is quantifiable "progressive overload," hence recovery/growth. What about same weight from the week before, but this week with slower eccentric? Is it a gain? A pause rep with the same weight/same rep you couldn't the week before is "progress," right? I track that type of progress on the notes in my app.

For me DOMS is it's worst and/or doen't appear until around 48 hours after.

Why not just keep tempo and pause the same and add weight because it is consistently quantifiable ? Isn’t that the simplest way to move forward? Consistent technique that works, adding weight.

 

[bigMoJo]

Why not just keep tempo and pause the same and add weight because it is consistently quantifiable ? Isn’t that the simplest way to move forward? Consistent technique that works, adding weight.

Yes, absolutely bro. Don't get me wrong... more weight, more reps is the simplest way to quantify. Sometimes, for the sake of "changing it up," "shocking the muscle," isn't a change—or adding a degree of difficulty—to tempo (i.e. pause rep) still a gain?

 

[Eddie.]

You bring up an interesting point. On some lifts, an increase in weight or added rep(s) is quantifiable "progressive overload," hence recovery/growth. What about same weight from the week before, but this week with slower eccentric? Is it a gain? A pause rep with the same weight/same rep you couldn't the week before is "progress," right? I track that type of progress on the notes in my app.

For me DOMS is it's worst and/or doen't appear until around 48 hours after.

If reps are the same then definitely it's a gain. I call it a win even if i do less, personally i can't go balls to the wall in each session, i need sometimes to go lighter and more focused. I just don't prioritize this in mesocycles or blocks, i'm kinda all over the place on that matter because that's how i enjoy training. I did some powerlifting for 2-3 years and i hated my life with logbook and the need to stay on plan with the given weight X reps.

DOMS are definitely worse the second day after training.

 

[Slowww]

Yes, absolutely bro. Don't get me wrong... more weight, more reps is the simplest way to quantify. Sometimes, for the sake of "changing it up," "shocking the muscle," isn't a change—or adding a degree of difficulty—to tempo (i.e. pause rep) still a gain?

I think it’s still a gain, but then if you slow it down, you have to keep that tempo and add weight hahaha. Otherwise it’s too hard to accurately assess your changes in strength, but of course that’s just my 2c .
For example this off season split, my program now has more dead stops. I had to reduce the weight, in order to account for this but because of the new technical aspect I don’t think of it as getting weaker. At least in a surplus I am actively trying to beat my log book every single session and make notes of tempo/ changes to it, because I know if I am getting stronger in the hypertrophy rep range, I’m getting bigger too.

 

[BuildABro]

I think it’s still a gain, but then if you slow it down, you have to keep that tempo and add weight hahaha. Otherwise it’s too hard to accurately assess your changes in strength, but of course that’s just my 2c .
For example this off season split, my program now has more dead stops. I had to reduce the weight, in order to account for this but because of the new technical aspect I don’t think of it as getting weaker,

As weight and reps increase, often form and technique degrades proportionally. I am guilty of this constantly. I am so stoked to be moving up in weight that I can forget what got me to that weight to begin with.

A clean is a clean is a clean, right? Well looking at myself on video occasionally it's like something almost subconscious but how I approach and execute the lift is far different, and not in a good way. It's something I always have to keep front of mind when I am going heavy. Like a mental checklist I do in my head that I should not have to be doing for a lift I have done successfully 50K times in my life.

 

[laclark89]

Dorian said he usto not be able to walk right for a week after leg day, and be in straight agony.

I remember from football when I was doing tons of legs I wouldn’t be able to sit down on the toilet for days without giving out a scream.

Then Haney says stimulate not annihilate, but in my little option for sure if your training one muscle a week you need to kill it.

So if your muscles are painful as hell after and Muscles not joints and tendons, then freaking mission accomplished. How u recover from that is on you.

I’m not sure if I remember this right it’s been about 20 years since my sports
Medicine or training/ therapy class I took, but that muscle soreness is from lactic acid from the muscles being broken down?

 

[BuildABro]

Dorian said he usto not be able to walk right for a week after leg day, and be in straight agony.

I remember from football when I was doing tons of legs I wouldn’t be able to sit down on the toilet for days without giving out a scream.

Then Haney says stimulate not annihilate, but in my little option for sure if your training one muscle a week you need to kill it.

So if your muscles are painful as hell after and Muscles not joints and tendons, then freaking mission accomplished. How u recover from that is on you.

I’m not sure if I remember this right it’s been about 20 years since my sports
Medicine or training/ therapy class I took, but that muscle soreness is from lactic acid from the muscles being broken down?

There are all these bro remedies out there which supposedly mitigate DOMS, but in my experience they are all suspect at best. The foam roller I guess temporarily provides relief, massage also when I can talk my wife into it, but as far lessening the severity overall I am not so sure. When the massage or foam rolling ceases, the DOMS is right where it was before.

Rest, hydration and nutrition is all that has ever worked for me.

 

[Liter O' Test]

for me, if im not recovered i dont get as sore because im doing less weight in the gym, less intensity without knowing it. I used to do too much volume and frequency and I thought if I didn't get very sore, it was because i was adapted to the volume, but i think it has more to do with the fact I wasn't able to push as hard and my body was just repairing enough to do the exact same thing next session.

 

[laclark89]

Agreed, only think I’ll add to your rest hydration and nutrition is light-moderate stretching, nothing crazy.

Ur lucky my wife will never use the Thera gun on me. I have to pay my kids to do it, but I get it done every day usually either way.

There are all these supposed bro remedies out there which supposedly mitigate DOMS, but in my experience they are all suspect at best. The foam roller I guess temporarily provides relief, massage also when I can talk my wife into it, but as far lessening the severity overall I am not so sure. When the massage or foam rolling ceases, the DOMS is right where it was before.

Rest, hydration and nutrition is all that has ever worked for me.

 

[AlexDavis43]

"Shocking the muscles"

put on your gym clothes and order a pizza instead -> shocking the muscles

put on your running shoes and smoke a cigarette instead -> shocking the muscles