Soreness. I pity the fool..

Don't forget about the Workout this Saturday 2/25/12 8:30-11:30. Be there by 8:30am for the best instruction. ;)

Well, I had my first cup of highly caffeinated coffee for the first time in like 2 weeks. It was my first drop of caffeine in 10 days. I felt like I was dying. I was shaking uncontrollably and jittery as hell. My heart thought I was a rocket ship. Fantastic.

Those of you still rockin' the paleo thing, good job! Keep it up. I suspect that everyone will experience something positive out of it.

Soreness: A good question was posed on the FB page about soreness and what to do with it. I'm going to try to keep things simple and not get technical about anything that doesn't need it because it gets boring.

Another reason is this: http://www.70sbig.com/blog/2011/11/shitty-research/

The general public believes soreness to be a metric indicator of a "good workout". Most people perceive soreness the result of working hard. Although one is more likely to get sore from doing more volume than normal, soreness is really not an indicator of anything other than soreness.

Soreness can result from many things, and there are different types of soreness at various degrees. The most common type is the soreness that comes a day or two after a high intensity workout. "Delayed-onset" soreness. From what I've read before, that particular soreness is caused by enzymes eating away at damaged muscle tissue to expose fresh tissue to bind other muscle fibers to. Most of the time, your body just isolates that area with a little localized inflammation to prevent retraumatizing (yep, I just invented that word) the same tissue until it fully heals back up. This is the soreness we all experienced in the beginning of BHIP that prevented us from sitting on toilets or going down stairs without feeling our thighs jiggle. The best way to deal with this is nutrition for recovery (anti-inflammatory) and rest combined with anything that will help mobilize fluids to that affected regions.

There is another type of soreness that comes on during extreme volumes of work. Endurance athletes who run insane distances often get sore during their run. The soreness can become so intense and debilitating that many are forced to quit long before they reach the finish line. That type of soreness is caused by protein breaking down within the muscle tissue and the various substances (I'm pretty sure it's potassium) creating a state of acidosis in the muscles that are getting used and abused. This is usually a precursor to Rhabdo and that is certainly a state of being that really sucks. It's often followed by kidney failure and possible death

Here's a dude that doesn't mind Rhabdo as much as he tries to help people. David Goggins and here's his website that will surely make you feel like an insignificant little worm. SHOW NO WEAKNESS

Anyway, I've had my urine turn brown and felt like death for a good couple weeks. Couldn't do anything for a couple weeks and had periodic muscle cramps that left me immobile for hours at a time. It sucked. Really bad. So if your urine ever starts getting darker than usual and resemebling  Dr. Pepper, you're in trouble. Get medical attention.

The point of this anecdote is that soreness is not a good thing. And if it is rewarded into being a good thing, then you're looking at even bigger problems down the line. They start at being sore, then turn into being immobile and cramped with flexibility problems and could turn into more life-threatening issues eventually. Soreness is a good tool to see what part of your body you use to generate a movement. So if I have doubts that a person is using their hips right then I might have them do something very hip specific like powercleans or KB swings for volume and then ask them where they're sore. If the say quads or back, I know that they are doing the movement incorrectly and now we need to fix it.

Otherwise, I see soreness as a training enemy. If I make myself too sore to workout the next session, then I'm not going to see the adaptive effects of the sequence of workouts. Basically, I'm getting weaker instead of stronger and what I think is my full output is nowhere near where it should be. This is also where fatigue-related injuries happen. You may be too sore to engage a necessary group of muscles and end up hurting yourself. Being sore is not indicative of a good workout, but increased performance IS, so anything that will hinder your future performance may not be a good idea in the athletic world.

In the body-building world, it may be different. They only use one muscle at a time and aspire for hypertrophy. So they may want to experience soreness as an indicator of hypertrophy. So if you're a body-builder, enjoy being sore and don't use the same muscles on subsequent days.

Everyone is different though. Some poeple like to rest when sore. Others like to work through soreness and pump some new blood. Others disregard soreness and just keep lifting or running. It's up to you. You just have to be smart and think about it in a developmental way. Ask yourself: "Am I going to be stronger or weaker tomorrow?" Usually, I'd go for the stronger one.

Immobility - Soreness, often times, results in tightening of muscles around joints and knots to form in the actual muscle tissue during recovery. This may lead to immobility/inflexibility. So it may behoove people to deal with soreness with mobility work to prevent tightness and develop necessary mobility. Kill two birds with one stone.




Here's a goal/worout for this week;

Do 30 pushups.
Do each pushups as perfectly as you can, one at a time. Hold a plank at the top of every pushup for about 5-10 seconds and be conscious of whether you are hollow or not. Be hollow.

Enjoy.