Should you workout when you are still feeling sore from your previous workout? That's what we're going to discuss in this video...

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Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) is the soreness that you often experience in a body part after a workout.

You usually start feeling DOMS the day after a workout and it can last for up to 3 days after the training session.

So during those few days while you are experiencing muscle soreness, should you workout or not?

Well, it depends...

Generally, beginners who are out of shape and new to working out will experience more muscle soreness compared to people who are more advanced and in better physical shape.

For a beginner who is just starting out it's normal to expect soreness after a workout. And the most important thing for beginners is to develop the habit of going to the gym on a regular basis.

So, in this case I would recommend working through the muscle soreness, if they can, to help build up their fitness level and work capacity so that they get to the point where they are not experiencing as much muscle soreness from their workouts.

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Note:
There is a big difference between muscle soreness and an actual injury. It's ok to temporarily work through muscle soreness, but it's NOT ok to work through an injury. Soreness is just a dull aching feeling in the muscles, but it's tolerable and often times you'll even feel better after some light exercise and movement. Whereas an injury is a very sharp uncomfortable pain. Most people will instantly be able to tell the difference between the "good" pain of muscle soreness and the "bad pain of an injury.
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Another time when it's ok to work through muscle soreness is for advanced lifters who are pushing their limits and trying to trigger an over compensation adaptive response within their body.

When you temporarily train beyond your normal capacity and push yourself into acute over training, where you are not letting your body fully recover between workouts, this can raise the adaptive energies within your body. In this short term this can actually help to trigger new muscle growth, because once you back off and go through a "deload" phase after a very high intensity training phase your body will over compensate and make faster than normal muscle gains.

It's kind of similar to how some athletes will carb deplete and then carb load in order to achieve a temporary super compensation of more stored glycogen within the muscle cells.

You can do the same type of thing with short term controlled over training (i.e. 3-4 weeks), where you work through delayed onset muscle soreness, and push beyond your normal recovery in order to get that adaptation response when you back off your training volume and intensity.

However, for the average person watching this video who is beyond the beginner phase and not an advanced athlete who is pushing the limits, it's perfectly fine to take an extra day of rest if you are feeling sore from your previous workout.

This is what I do personally, I'll listen to my body and if I feel I need to take an extra day off from the gym for more rest and recovery, I'll do so and then resume my training the next day.