When you work out, are you supposed to feel the muscles as you work them?

[JamielovesKU]

Ok, so over the years I guess I went from being real lazy to a little more active and one thing I've noticed is that when I work out (working on toning my legs at the moment) I feel the pain of the muscles being toned and worked. Its not just in the moment as Im working them, but they can hurt for days. Is that supposed to happen? Thanks.

[trgffggffgfg]

If your muscles are sore they can hurt a bit but it is not really pain (if you bruised muscles for example it would be pain) but it is a feeling of soreness which can be unpleasant and which is why you want to avoid to use those muscles extensively (which is the purpose of that feeling) so that your muscles can properly regenerate. It lasts/peaks around 1-2 days 1.5-0 days after the exercise and is insignificant in between. If you exercise a muscle really effectively, when it is exhausted you literally feel that muscle (spatially where it is) to get exhausted/overworked. If you are doing compound exercises obviously you will feel not a single muscle but many muscles at once and that feels as unspecific as it sound like to me at least.

[trgffggffgfg]

Since you are a girl you can't release as much testosterone as men in proportion hence you get a lower regeneration rate hence your pain could be due to overworking your muscles because (maybe even for a woman) your max testosterone release is below average. But maybe you are just describing soreness awkwardly. You should be cautious though: testosterone is the primary muscle regeneration/growth factor in humans (not just men) and that is why you can't exercise the same as a male, following fitness advice for men or for women who naturally can synthesize enough of it might be deceptive.

[Doc_Whiskey]

Yep! When you work out, your actually tearing your muscles microscopically! So that burning and aching and jell-o feeling you have after a good hearty workout is just your muscles being repaired! The more you workout, the less this happens though. By that I mean, the less muscle fibers you will tear. Your body adapts to it, which is why we increase our weight or repetitions or set volume.

[knotme]

Yes, if there is not destruction, there will be no growth. You want to feel sore with all your workouts, but it is not going to be like the first time soreness. When you workout, you should be focusing on the muscle or group of muscles you are working to be effective

[Imonlyhereforabit]

Well first you need to realize what muscle group each exercise works. Then you need to actually work out that muscle group. What I mean by that is focus on isolating that muscle and contract it. So for example a pullup is supposed to work your lats. You can do a lot more pullups if you use your core, biceps, forearms and everything, but then you're not maximizing your back. Instead if you think of your arms as hooks and focus on the lats alone while keeping your core stable you'll get a much better workout but likely do less pullups

[Theguyoverthere]

Yes you should feel them as you work them pretty much.

Rule of thumb is soreness is fine, sharp pains are not.

The soreness lasting for days is called DOMS Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. It's perfectly normal and your body's healing the muscle and it'll recover stronger than before.

[Anonymous]

Of course. When you work out, you create little micro-tears in your muscle fibers. When they heal up, this is what causes them to become bigger over time.

This is called microtrauma for the tears, and muscle hypertrophy for the healing. It's normal unless you're sore for more than a few days afterwards, assuming you've been exercising regularly. If you are sore for more than a few days, you're over-training and need to tone it down.

[PowerpuffJohnnyBravo]

Duh? You lift weights focusing on it. Like when I am doing benchpress I won't focus on forearms while doing it, Id light grip it and take it to pecs and slowly bench up taking all focus on pectorals

[llorando]

Yes, that normal, at least for me any ways.