Muscle for Life

If you’re into weightlifting, you’ve become very acquainted with sore muscles. You’ve done many reps of the “half-squat-toilet-fall.” You’ve had the “is this just muscle soreness or am I actually dying?” thoughts. And maybe you’ve even gone full Stockholm syndrome and now crave the daily debilitation. Well, I’ve been there, I’ve learned some things, and now I’m going to pass on those lessons. You see, like many people, I used to think muscle soreness was pretty black and white. I assumed that sore muscles were a sign that I was doing something right, and the more sore I was, the more effective my workouts were. (And as a corollary, I worried that workouts that produced little soreness also produced little results.) Well, it turns out it’s not that simple. Years ago, I used to do workouts that produced a tremendous amount of muscle soreness…and I made mediocre (at best) gains. After dramatically changing the way I trained, however, I experienced far less muscle soreness but made far better progress. In this ep