When you train intensely with weights your muscles get sore, especially the day or two after intense training.

This happens because the heavy weights cause ‘micro-tears’ in your muscle tissue. It is these little injuries, if you will, that cause the feeling of soreness.

It is also the healing of these little micro-tears that leads to muscle growth. As they say, no pain, no gain!

If you are feeling sore after a workout it just means that your workout was successful.

Keep in mind that the soreness we want is of a very particular kind. It is not the soreness you experience when you are injured. It is a more moderate kind of soreness that you feel deep in the muscle tissue.

If you don’t feel it a day or two afterwards, you workout was likely not intense enough.

Again, the operative word is ‘intense’ not ‘long’. You will not achieve this desired soreness by training for 3 or 4 hours in the gym. This will only lead to overtraining which is counter-productive for muscle growth.

The rule of thumb is you should NEVER train for more than an hour per session (excluding warm up time).

That said, if the soreness lasts too long you will not be able to have another intense workout soon enough for the cumulative effect of workouts to build up and produce quality muscle. You cannot take a week off after every workout and expect to gain mass.

What can you do to minimize the soreness?

Here are a few things that help:

1. Stretching before and after your workout and in between sets

This not only helps reduce soreness but it can even double the effectiveness of your workout. I’m often amazed at how little attention even experienced bodybuilders give to stretching.

I know it is tempting to walk into the gym and just start ‘pumping iron’ but trust me, you will do much better if you stretch for at least ten minutes before the intense training and also in between sets.

2. Using Creatine

There was much controversy when creatine first came out in the late 90’s about its adverse long term effects on the internal organs. Today most of those concerns have been widely discredited (Google the various studies for yourself).

Taken before a workout, creatine definitely helps you feel less sore afterwards meaning you can hit the gym again sooner than if you did not use creatine.

With creatine you also require less rest between sets and between repetitions which allows you to train much more intensely in an hour. I recommend using it periodically and then going off entirely.

In summary, soreness is a good thing and a gauge of how effective your workout was but you should also aim to make sure that it doesn’t last too long.

For more advanced lessons on muscle building visit Men's Workouts Heaven.