speed dawg said:
Look I'm not trying to say soreness is the ONLY indicator of a good training session, but it's a good rule of thumb. When your body is pushed into uncharted waters, you WILL get sore. And doing that is the only way to force your body to adapt.
There's an article from iron addict out there that if i remember correctly is that his delts NEVER get sore no matter what he does to them. He did something like 6 sets of 30 or something to them purposely just to see if there was anything he could do to get them sore. Come to thikn of it, the front of my shoulders don't get sore either, and if i recall correctly i read something before that the front delts are one of the most resistant to soreness for some reason.
Some parts on certain people do not get sore.
I could type all day long and my fingers and forearms would be sore but they would not be growing bigger. I could do 50 reps of 5 lbs bicep curls and not grow bigger but be sore. I can run around at a softball tournament (this weekend, by the way) and i know i will be sore but my legs aren't growing from it.
It does *NOT* take that much stimulation to trigger a growth response from muscles. You just need to go beyond what they're comfortable doing at their current adaptation. You can still get a growth stimulus without soreness. Doing two extra reps than last workout isn't necessarily going to get you sore but it's still going to trigger growth. I add weight or about 2 reps every workout and i often have no soreness, especially in certain muscles that just don't get sore for me very often.
The only time i get much soreness anymore is from completely new exercises done at different rep schemes. I adapt quickly, do more volume than most of you, and really don't get very sore. I still get stronger and bigger.
The funny thing about this is that no one even knows WHY you get sore so to link it directly to muscle growth is fairly random.
"a rule of thumb" and saying "WILL" as an absolute contradict each other.