If You Can't Feel It, It Isn't Working

Just the other day someone told they took this great class and they were not sore the next day even though they worked extremely hard. Hmmm, I started to think what a perfect topic for the blog. 

When you are exercising to improve your fitness level, lose weight, or you're training for a sport or an event you need to expect to have sore muscles for the next day or too. If not either you haven't put in as much effort as you thought or the class or training session was not challenging enough. Now I don't mean you should be in great pain but your muscles should feel stiff as though you need to stretch. Exercise breaks down the muscle and creates tiny tears in the fibers, when you sleep at night your body goes into repair mode, releases growth hormone, and lays down more muscle fiber to repair the tiny tears. This process causes your muscles to grow and get stronger. The pain you feel the next day or two is the result of that process. So the discomfort you feel (come on it's not really that painful) is actually a good thing, it means you have worked hard enough to get results. When you wake up tomorrow and your legs are stiff you can say to yourself "Wow that was a successful workout yesterday."