Muscle soreness

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imported_daxie

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Hello,

since there is quite some as I call "non-experience based"-knowledge around here, I have a question.

How come some muscles are generally more responsive to doms than others?

For example, most of us know sore legs can make you look cripple for a week, while back or shoulders are very hard to get a sore feeling in. This is not only my own personal experience, but a general view among others. Off course this depends from person to person, but there is a general trend.

There seems to be an order for the amount of stiffness, given a certain training scheme.

- legs
- tris
- chest
- bis
- shoulders
- back

How is this explained?

daxie
 
I'm pretty sure it has to do with blood flow.  The more blood flow, the more toxins can be washed out.  A muscle like the shoulder is hard to get soar because any blood flowing to the arms must go through the shoulder first.  Therefore, your extremeties are more prone to gettting soar.

I just posted something last night seeing if people had experienced better gains when adding in a small amount of cardio to a bulking cycle. I was thinking the increased blood flow throughout the body should help to deliver nutrients to help add mass.
cardio to help add lbm post
 
I guess since the legs are subjected to much greater loads, it causes much more microtrauma compared to something like the biceps.
The trend you have there seems to, in general be, from a bigger muscle down to the smaller ones; except for the back.
Not sure why, but lack of soreness in the back might be related to the fact that it's hard, if not impossible to isolate the back muscles in exercise (so microtrauma wise, 5 sets of squats and 5 sets of rows, the squats win over - not that I'm saying squats are an isolation movement, before you grab a rope
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) . Though, exercise them long enough, longer than you normally ever would, and you can bet you'll get sore.
Just my out of my @$$ 2 cents.
 
I agree with the back not getting as sore as easy...... as far as working out is concerned. However, if I go out and rake leaves or dig a trench, my back is sore for a week!
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mm, none of those are satisfactory...

agree with the back and the lack of isolation though...

blood flow... could work for the shoulder, but how to explain the diff between tris en bis, of which the former seem to get sore a lot easier?

They are both small muscle groups, both get relatively equal loads, both have the same blood flow I think...
 
Some muscle groups MAY (not 100% sure) repair much faster due to others due to the increased androgen receptors in the area.

Muscle groups like traps and shoulders have more angroden receptors then other muscle groups.
 
For the difference between triceps and triceps i SUSPECT it could have to do with the conditioning of each muscle group.

For instance, you'll notice calves are almost impossible to get sore, this is because they almost never get deconditioned because we use them ALL day EVERYday!

Hope that helps.
 
I would agree it is partly due to the conditioning of the muscle.

If you want to get DOMS for your back, then do a few sets of power cleans or hang snatches.
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[b said:
Quote[/b] (Rovi @ July 17 2005,4:16)]Personally, my triceps are subjected to much greater loads than my biceps.
Click to expand...
what do you mean by that? your triceps are stronger? i think everyone's triceps are stronger (twice the size)...

but if you meant conditioning wise.. do you do alot of pushing???

I'd guess that most people's biceps are more conditioned then their triceps.
 
I wonder if some of the soreness is caused by the fact that many of the movements we do are not natural. For instance legs get sore after doing squats. How often do we actually squat with anything other than body weight? Tri's - how often are we pushing anything heavy other than rolling over in bed? Same goes for chest. Whereas biceps, although maybe not lifting heavy objects all the time are in constant flexion and relaxation all day just as we do with curls so we don't feel the pain as much as this is a natural movement. Shoulders don't get sore because again they are in constant motion all the time.

Just a theory.

Mike
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (OneMoreRep @ July 17 2005,9:36)]
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Rovi @ July 17 2005,4:16)]Personally, my triceps are subjected to much greater loads than my biceps.
Click to expand...
what do you mean by that? your triceps are stronger? i think everyone's triceps are stronger (twice the size)...  
but if you meant conditioning wise.. do you do alot of pushing???
I'd guess that most people's biceps are more conditioned then their triceps.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I'm more inclined towards pushing (as opposed to pulling).
I don't know about the triceps being twice the size, though they might be bigger than the biceps. I've been doing a lot of pushups since my early teens, so I guess over time I developed more conditioned and stronger (or at least, more adaptable) triceps.
 
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