06/24/2026
Soreness may feel like proof that you had a very productive training session, but it’s a pretty poor indicator of whether your performance improved.
Here’s why:
🧬The soreness that’s felt comes from damage to the muscle fibers, inflammation and new or unfamiliar movements and volumes. It’s your body saying, “Man, that was stressful.”
🧬Performance improvements come from adaptation to a stimulus, not just the stimulus.
🧬If you’re super sore and caused a lot of damage to the muscle, there may be a dip in performance. You must recover to adapt.
🧬Many interpret soreness to be positive feedback from what they did. It’s great that you exercised, but soreness isn’t proof of adaptation, just proof you did something challenging recently.
It’s valuable to observe how your body and muscles feel each day, but don’t judge a book by its cover.
