One reason your sore after your workout....and it's not what you think.

     That is a misleading title. 

There are a multitude of reasons why your sore after a workout.

I'll examine one of those reasons in today's post 

In a word: Periodization

Not what you were thinking was it?

    Periodization is generally used when game planning long term training efforts. As in yearlong training that you would see at the high school/collegiate level of sports. This involves attempting to peak during the season or before a big race. Peak performance only lasts 7-14 days before the body would need to rest again before gearing back up for peak performance. It can also be used at the micro level in terms of day-to-day training. At each level various theories exist. The main theory is G.A.S. or General Adaptation Syndrome. GAS is an overarching theory that has sub theories attached. Much like an umbrella is has multiple branches. 

    The first aspect of G.A.S is the Alarm stage. This is the initial response to exercise; a new stimulus if you will. This can be aerobic, anaerobic, endocrine, etc. For resistance training it can be increased volume, new exercises or a new training plan altogether. During the alarm stage your body has soreness, stiffness or after leg day trouble walking. This can last hours, days or weeks depending on your fitness levels. In my workouts I increased the volume from three sets to four sets and I am feeling increased soreness because of the introduction of a new stimuli. The next stage is Resistance. This is where adaptations begin or in nerdy fitness terms supercompensation. This is where your training illicit a specific response. In my case the more I perform four sets then my body should adapt to the new training. The next phase is the exhaustion phase. Exhaustion is typically you're overreaching or in extreme cases overtraining. Overreaching is a good thing. It's a tool used by coaches to over tax the body on purpose to push into a new phase of training. For example, if your goal is to run a 10 miler then overreaching would be to run 12 plus miles. Overtraining is a more serious issue that could require weeks to months to recover. Think about being burnt out a work.... that would be an equivalent to fitness. Overtraining also involves other factors such as emotional burnout, poor diet, lack of sleep. Exhaustion phase could also be from excessive training, repetitive training or too varied training.

    Apart of GAS training is the stimulus-fatigue-recovery adaptation. This theory where more intense training requires more rest periods. Fitness and fatigue would be inversely related in this case. Once adaptation occurs then fatigue can be dissipated and more controlled. Without the introduction of new stimuli then detraining (loss of adaptations) can occur. A skilled coach or trainer can manage recovery with rest days, active rest, light days and heavy days or training splits.

    Fitness-Fatigue is very close to stimulus-fatigue-recovery. Tougher the training then more rest is needed to bring the body to homeostasis's. More training and adaptations will lessen the recovery time frame. Meaning while a hard leg day makes your legs sore then next workout will be easier and easier because of the adaptations that are occurring.

    This is just one aspect of why you are sore after a gym session.