I Don’t Feel Pain Anymore – Is My Workout Still Working?
When it comes to fitness, we have all heard the saying, ‘No Pain, No Gain!!’. Unfortunately, numerous people in the fitness world still live by this statement. Some individuals feel that if they’re not experiencing muscle soreness and pain during and after their workouts, they need to push themselves even harder.
Are these people right? Is pain during and after exercising the best sign that you’ve pushed yourself with the intensity that you should have? I’m sticking to the position I’ve articulated in the past of, it depends. Here’s why…
Why Don’t I get Sore After Working Out Anymore?
To begin with, studies show there’s a lot of variability across the soreness people feel after exercising, even between people with similar genetics and training backgrounds. You may just be a person who doesn’t ever feel sore after exercising. I do work with some clients like this, but they are few and far between.
If you used to feel pain when you first started exercising, but after a couple of years, you don’t feel pain afterwards this can be a sign that your body’s getting fitter and stronger. You are able to handle new exercise challenges more efficiently, which is great! I’ve been exercising for decades and I myself, rarely feel a big muscle burn after a fitness session.
A lack of muscle soreness, may however, be because you’re not changing up your exercise routines regularly enough. I switch up my clients’ fitness routines at least monthly. Regularly altering exercises, the order you perform them in, and the weight you lift, will help prevent plateauing.
There are so many fun and innovative ways to add variety into your fitness plans. Using different exercise tools, inserting supersets or drop sets into your routines and adding in HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) like Tabata style into your exercise program are some of these ways.
Muscle soreness can actually be a sign that you’re not taking good care of yourself. It sometimes results from you being sleep deprived, dehydrated, or following a diet of poor nutrition.
So make sure that you’re taking care of your sleep, hydration and nutrition and try switching up your fitness routine at least monthly to continue to shock your body into change. You may need the assistance of a workout buddy or a personal trainer to help get you outside your comfort level and that is OK.
If you’re doing all of these things, and still not feeling the burn, that is probably OK, but it leads to this question…
If Muscle Soreness Isn’t the Best Indication of a Good Workout, Then What is?
Once you no longer feel muscle soreness after exercising, you may start questioning whether you are still progressing. This is a normal worry. To determine if you’re progressing your strength and cardio levels, ask yourself the questions below.
3 Fitness Progression Indicators:
I believe that asking yourself these three questions, provides you with far more insight into your exercise progression, versus feeling muscle soreness after a workout.
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Do you have more strength?
To me, the number one reason to exercise, is to build strength. Having muscle helps ensure independent living. It builds energy, bone and joint strength, reduces stress and the risk of falling, it also improves sleep cycles.
To measure strength improvements at the gym, measure whether you can either lift a higher weight or perform more repetitions with the same weight during many of the exercises you perform. If you can, chances are, you’ve increased your strength.
In your everyday life, assess whether you are able to carry the groceries more easily or pick-up you kids or grand kids without feeling the same aches and pains that you used to deal with. If so, it’s likely that you’ve built up your strength.
Are you starting to see muscles poke through on your arms, legs or core, that weren’t there before? If so, you are probably becoming stronger.
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Are you able to really push yourself during your workouts?
Do you end each of your workouts and feel like you’ve given it your all? Are you able to complete more reps or lift heavier weights than when you first started? Or are you able to exercise for a longer duration without feeling as tired?
It’s not wise to push yourself into the ground every day you workout. But, if you want to progress your fitness training and build your strength, you have to be able to ‘give it your all’ a couple of times a week.
It’s sometimes hard to push yourself at the intensity level that you need to, to progress in your fitness journey. You may need the assistance of a workout buddy or a personal trainer to help get you outside your comfort level and that is OK. Just be sure to get the help that you need.
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Are you leading a more active lifestyle?
Do you have more energy to get out of bed and stay off the couch? Are you able to walk up and down your stairs without feeling winded like you used to? Can you race around with your dog in the park now? If you answer yes to one or more of these questions, provides you with an insightful indication that you continue to progress your fitness level, regardless of feeling muscle soreness after exercising.
I measure my clients’ development in the gym each and every time we’re together, to ensure their programs are working to build up their muscular strength and endurance. I encourage you to do the same with your own workouts. Variety and continuously increasing the reps or weight lifted, is necessary for fitness progression.
During and after almost all of my own workouts now, I’m able to either lift more weight or perform more repetitions, yet I don’t feel the muscle tension the next day.
To Sum It Up…Why I Don’t Feel Pain Anymore, After Exercising?
You may or may not feel muscles soreness after working out. No pain, no gain is not a slogan I believe in. A muscle burn is only one way to measure if you’re progressing and building strength during your gym routines.
If your muscles don’t get sore anymore after a workout, there are many other indicators that demonstrate to you that you’re still pushing it intensely enough in the gym. Ask yourself these three questions:
- Do I have more noticeable strength either in the gym, or in everyday life?
- Am I able to really push myself during my workouts?
- Am I leading a more active lifestyle?
If you want to progress your fitness training and build your strength, you should be answering a resounding ‘YES’ to at least one of these questions.
Frequently Asked Questions and the Answers
- What’s the best way to push your muscles and ignite the muscle burn the next day?
Many different strength training formats exist, each with specific benefits. I love to get my clients lifting heavy weights, as slowly and in control as possible. This format increases their ‘time under tension’, the length of time that a muscle is contracted.
This format of strength training is an effective way to increase muscle hypertrophy. It forces muscles to work harder and for longer.
- What if I always feel pain, even if I haven’t exercised for a week?
If you feel chronic pain after you are cleared by a medical professional to exercise, it’s important that you start by moving better, before moving more often. Protect yourself by removing an exercise if it doesn’t feel right. And work with a fitness professional to correct your dysfunctional movement patterns.
- Why don’t I get sore after working out anymore?
As I’ve highlighted above, there are many reasons you may not get sore after exercising. Due to genetics, you may just be a person who doesn’t ever feel sore after exercising. Or, this may be a sign that your body’s getting fitter and stronger.
Or maybe you’re not changing up your exercise routines regularly enough. Muscle soreness can even be a sign that you’re not taking good care of yourself. It sometimes results from you being sleep deprived, dehydrated, or following a diet of poor nutrition.
To Sum It Up…
You may or may not feel muscles soreness after working out. A muscle burn is only one way to measure if you’re pushing yourself hard enough in the gym. There are so many indicators outlined above, that will also demonstrate this for you.
No pain, no gain is not a slogan I believe in.
Source: Workout conundrum: Is that good pain or bad pain?, Gabriella Boston, Washington Post, March 2018.