Brutal Workout, yet fun

[Catrin]

Now, maybe I am wrong but- I thought that working to failure and a little muscle soreness was food for you, in terms of making gains in strength. Is this wrong? (Wahine?). From what I've seen, if you don't push some you don't make many gains. So the thought is, if you aren't getting sore ever in your upper body, are you doing enough work to make the gains you'd like to see? If I'm wrong here someone set me straight. I come from a long ago body building background, and that's what I remember. (Cory Everson era)

good question, interesting to see if Wahine weighs in. I work in my sessions until my arms won't do it anymore - so I am reaching that point. My new trainer said the general lack of.soreness is a good sign that I am hydrating properly. Now, that being said, my deltoids were sore this morning - our "fun' workout yesterday was wild, fun, but just plain wild!

I've been trying to both ride and do the special Sunday workout, but something must give. Will have to stick to the weekday sessions and just go to the weekend version when the weather is bad.

[Wahine]

Soreness in moderation is a good thing.

Seriously, a little muscle soreness is good. It means you've taken the tissue a little beyond it's current capacity and that is a good way to stimulate growth. You're body will still respond to exercise even if you are not sore, but it might be a bit slower. If your muscles are so sore that you can barely move the next day, the longer recovery required to get over that workout might outweigh the benefits of pushing that hard. So what you want is a soreness that is kind of like a friendly reminder that you did something hard but not so sore that you have to change the way you move or your activity level.

That's the rule of thumb for power muscles, those are your big muscles that are prime movers like your delts, pecs, lats, glutes, quads, hams, calves.

Postural muscles are a different story. That includes the deep muscles of your core. If your deep core muscles get that same type of soreness, good for you. But if not, don't worry about whether or not you're working them enough, you'll still get good gains with consistent work. Those muscles are meant to function at a submaximal level and that's how they are wired to your nervous system. It's very hard to work them at a level that will cause delayed onset muscle soreness because of that hard wiring and it's not really necessary. In fact, if you try to do hard ballistic movements to work them that hard, your body will automatically switch to cheating with the prime movers because that's their job and you might not work those core muscles as much as you would think.

[Catrin]

Soreness in moderation is a good thing.

Seriously, a little muscle soreness is good. It means you've taken the tissue a little beyond it's current capacity and that is a good way to stimulate growth... So what you want is a soreness that is kind of like a friendly reminder that you did something hard but not so sore that you have to change the way you move or your activity level.

That's the rule of thumb for power muscles, those are your big muscles that are prime movers like your delts, pecs, lats, glutes, quads, hams, calves.

Postural muscles are a different story. That includes the deep muscles of your core. If your deep core muscles get that same type of soreness, good for you. But if not, don't worry about whether or not you're working them enough, you'll still get good gains with consistent work......

This makes a lot of sense, thank you. I've a strong lower body, and figure if I can do an almost 5 minute plank that my core has to be pretty strong as well, but strengthening my upper body has been quite the challenge, as mentioned earlier. The two group trainers I work with have quite different styles, so my body should find it difficult to adapt to the differences between them. My deltoids and triceps were sore yesterday, and a little this morning, so something seems to be working

I divide my two weekly group training sessions between them - and the new one emails out a "WOW - workout of the week" for us to do on our own. As the few I've seen so far appears to focus on some intense cardio/lower body work I just might skip this during the height of riding season - or just do it every other week, we shall see. I tend to push myself too hard as it is, especially in mid/late summer.

Wahine, we have done something like your Star of Power, and at one time he had three dynamax balls in motion It was torture and fun at the same time! This Sunday we were doing things like partner foam rolling/stretching, a pushup series, bear crawls and a rather lengthy shoulder series with kettlebells. It was upper body "fun day".