Should I Workout When I’m Sore?
Muscle soreness recovery tips
On today’s episode of Live Lean TV, Jessica and I share our opposing answers on the following viewer question, should I workout when I’m sore?
We have another great episode from our #WayBackWednesday series, where we highlight the best questions from previous episodes of our #AskLiveLeanTV Q&A show.
This question is from #AskLiveLeanTV Ep. 001.
Nora Andersen on Facebook asks the following question: should I workout when I’m sore? I’m not referring to the kind of pain from a broken arm or anything serious like that. I am referring to the type of pain from having really sore muscles?
The answer to this question, like many questions related to fitness and nutrition is, it depends.
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When it comes to the questions of should I workout when I’m sore, Jessica and I provide similar but different advice.
Here is Jessica’s advice on muscle soreness and recovery
If you’re suffering from really sore muscles the day after your workout, you should allow some recovery time.
Having sore muscles is a normal part of training, since during the workout, your muscles have been torn and broken down.
But don’t worry, this is a good thing as muscle breakdown is a necessary part of the muscle building process.
Recovery is essential for muscle building
However, another major part of the muscle building process is allowing for sufficient muscle recovery.
If you never never let your muscles properly recover, you are going to extend the muscle soreness for longer than it needs to be.
You are also potentially not giving your body a chance to repair and rebuild stronger, which is the goal of your workouts.
Again, a major part of the game of building muscle is having sufficient recovery time.
Recovery is so important, and often so overlooked when it comes to muscle building.
If you just continuously go the gym and tear down your muscles, you are going to eventually hit a wall where you just can’t train anymore.
This is often referred to as overtraining.
Therefore, it’s much better to build in rest days, to allow for proper recovery.
Living Lean is a lifestyle
Working out should be a part of an overall healthy lifestyle, that you follow for the rest of your life.
It is not something you just do once or for a short period of time.
Fitness and health is a life long lifestyle.
So it’s a good, but not necessary sign, if you feel sore after your workouts.
If your muscles are really sore the next day, rather than working through the pain every single day, take a day or two off to recover.
Then after you’re recovered, get back to your workout program.
Here is Brad’s advice on muscle soreness and recovery
I’m going to take the other side of this answer.
Even though Jessica and I are husband and wife, and we’re both fitness professionals, from time to time, we do take differing approaches to certain aspects of fitness and nutrition.
We often have these conversations when we’re in the car, and we’ll debate about certain topics.
Although everything Jessica said was bang on, I’m just going to put a little asterisks beside her answer, because it’s all specific to the individual.
For example, if you are brand new to fitness, after your first resistance training workout, you will be freaking sore.
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Now does that mean you have to take four days off before you train again because you’re still sore?
Absolutely not
One of the ways to reduce muscle soreness and speed up muscle recovery, is to increase blood flow.
When your muscles are sore, you need to get more blood flowing to muscle, to help reduce muscle soreness.
How do you increase blood flow to your sore muscles?
One way to increase blood flow to reduce sore muscles is to work that muscle out.
For example, if after your chest workout, your muscles in your chest are sore, do some push ups.
By completing a bodyweight chest exercise like push ups will increase blood flow to the sore muscles in your chest, and help reduce muscle soreness.
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So I agree with Jessica that recovery days are important when you have extreme muscle soreness.
However, the point is, if you’re feeling a little bit sore, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t workout.
Sometimes you should work through the pain, i.e. minor muscle soreness.
Bottom line on should I workout when I’m sore
There are a lot of variables to the question, should I workout when I’m sore.
It really depends on the specific situation, the person, and how sore you really are.
So the answer will sometimes be, yes you should workout when you’re sore.
Then other times the answer will be, no you should not workout when you’re extremely sore.
You may not enjoy hearing the answer of, it depends, since it may seem like a cop out, but it’s so true.
1-On-1 custom online coaching
This is why we also have a team of Live Lean coaches that design custom workout programs for people who really need the one-on-one help.
We also have ready to follow programs that are designed to work for everybody, regardless of your age or gender.
But, sometimes you might be a unique person, with a unique situation, where you need a customized program.
If this is you, we have a team of Live Lean coaches ready to help you with a custom program.
However, if you don’t have unique needs, our programs like Live Lean Afterburn 2.0 have been helping men and women from all over the world, get amazing results.
I just want to say a quick thank you
I just want to say a quick thank you to everyone of you that picked up a copy of my book, Think And Live Lean.
I’m not trying to pitch you the book with this post, because these #WayBackWednesday posts are really about giving more value back to you.
We work really hard to answer your specific questions to help you achieve your goals.
However, Jessica and I are fitness professionals, so we do create and sell programs to give you a step-by-step blueprint to implement and take our advice to the next level.
But with all that said, I just really wanted to take the time to say thank you to everyone that picked up my book, Think And Live Lean.
You’ve been tweeting and tagging me in your Instagram photos of you with your copy of the book.
Plus, seeing and reading all the 5 star Amazon reviews coming in has been amazing.
Receiving a lot of Amazon reviews was a major goal for this project.
Getting your Amazon reviews helps not only promote the book, but it also helps build credibility behind our Live Lean brand.
I said this a couple times before, that I did not write this book to make a million dollars.
It was more of a passion project and the mindset aspect of Living Lean was a missing piece in our suite of programs.
So if you bought a copy of Think And Live Lean, thank you.
But the next thing I need you to do is to go to Amazon and write a review for it.
That would absolutely mean the world to me.
So thank you so much from the bottom of my heart
I poured my heart and soul into this book, and I’m really happy with all the feedback to date.
If you’ve learned anything from our posts on social media, the best thing that you can do is just share our message.
Tell somebody else about how we or our programs helped you begin to transform your Live Lean lifestyle.
If you’ve already finished reading Think And Live Lean, this may sound familiar as this was one of the last steps in the book.
Pay it forward by sharing and teaching someone else the message of Living Lean.
This helps spread our Live Lean Transformation 1,000,0000 mission, so we can help so many more people.
That’s what is really gratifying to us.
Also don’t be shy with us
We always love when you engage with us by sending us messages on Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, or Facebook.
Over the years, we know some people, who we called “lurkers”, finally come out of the shadows and introduce themselves to us.
That makes us so happy.
So if you have been lurking, send us a message on any of our social media channels.
Come hang out with us on social
You can also find us on social media for more daily motivation to keep you Living Lean:
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Brad Gouthro is the founder of Live Lean TV, a media company focused on helping men and women “Live Lean” 365 days a year. Brad’s programs and content have helped millions of people all over the world learn how to get in shape, and more importantly, sustain it for life.
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