What does muscle soreness mean?

Well I have been working out pretty hard this week trying out new exercises and techniques. Today, I am feeling sore everywhere. We have all heard the phrase "no pain, no gain". I don't know about you, but I often put muscle soreness, to mean I just had a good workout and I am building muscle and losing fat. From what I have read, I couldn't be more wrong. In order to explain better; I found this article on livestrong

Apparently, all the pain we feel from soreness after a workout is called Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness or DOMS. What this means is all the soreness we feel after a workout is usually the day after. Your muscles become swollen and inflamed from muscle fiber damage during your workout.

Lessening Soreness

The amount of soreness you experience relies on how efficient your body adapts to your workouts. When your body adapts to a training program, you experience a lesser degree of muscular soreness. Although your soreness decreases, it does not mean your workout lacks effectiveness. This point in your training indicates the time to progress your training program. Progressing your training program typically includes adding exercise intensity, volume or frequency.

Measuring Exercise Effectiveness

Instead of basing how effective your workouts are by soreness, make use of other proven methods for testing progression. If you wish to increase strength, use the one-rep maximum test. Your one-rep maximum refers to the heaviest amount of weight performed in an exercise for one repetition. For measuring size gains, perform circumference measurements and record. Various body locations such as the chest, biceps and thighs are indicators of size gains. For weight loss, use a scale and record your weight. Measure your progress every four to six weeks to assess the effectiveness of your workout plan. Lessen Soreness Performing a warm-up before your actual workout can lessen the effects of DOMS. A general warm-up consists of using larger muscle groups through activities such as running or calisthenics. The length of your warm-up depends on your fitness level. Beginning exercisers require a longer warm-up period compared with advanced exercisers.

Basically, what I am getting from this post is that muscle soreness does not determine whether or not a work out is effective. It just means that you are doing an exercise your body is not used to performing. The more you do it the less sore you will feel, but that does not mean you are not getting an effective workout. So continue to do the exercises you know works for your body, just know that since you are not feeling any soreness it does not mean it is not working. And keep trying new ones, like me. I like to shake it up sometimes, your body will thank you for it in the end.