October 7, 2025 • 27 mins
Fit, Healthy & Happy Podcast
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SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Welcome to There is a Method to the Madness.
My name is Rob Maxwell, and I'man exercise physiologist and
personal trainer.
I am the owner of Maxwell'sfitness programs, and I've been
in business since 1994.
The purpose of this podcast isto get to the real deal of what
really works and mostimportantly why things work.
(00:21):
Hence the name, There Is aMethod to the Madness.
Before I get to today's show, Iwant to thank Jonathan and Lynn
Gilden of the Gilden Group atRealty Pros.
They are committed to providingthe highest level of customer
service in home sales.
Why don't you give them a shoutand figure out what your home is
worth?
386-451-2412.
(00:46):
All right, let's talk about somefitness here.
When somebody says, Well, it'scomplicated, or they might go in
the other direction and say,Well, it's really that simple.
(01:08):
And have you ever thought thatthese two totally contrasting
ideas are actually a big part ofbeing the same thing?
Well, I'm going to talk aboutthat, how it relates to a
subject today on physicalfitness.
I had a client like something Isent them in response to a text
(01:32):
kind of like explaining thedifference of morphological
hypertrophy and breakdown ofmuscle cells and all this like
complicated stuff because hereally kind of likes that stuff.
Like he's interested in it.
Um, he's one of those types ofpeople that if he understands
(01:54):
like what's happening, then heis more able to comprehend what
he needs to do.
And not everybody's like that.
I mean, I've been uh and there'snot a right, there's not a
wrong, there's not a good,there's not a bad.
I mean, I've been doing this areally long time.
And uh everybody's different,you know.
Some people are like, you know,I don't give a rat's fanny about
(02:19):
any of that.
Just tell me what the frickin'do.
And other people are like, wantbreakdowns, right?
And I'm good with it either way.
The only time I'm not good withit is if somebody's like
purposely being passiveaggressive and uh, you know,
challenging things.
And then maybe I know themalready, and so I know they're
(02:43):
not really like asking theinformation so they can get
better, they're more or lessasking the information so it can
stall them to get better, ifthat makes any sense.
So, in other words, they mightbe stalling, and I just know
that they're really just notcoming from a good place when
they're asking me questions.
(03:03):
I mean, for the most part, likeI said, I love questions, but
I've been doing this a longtime.
And I know that some people justlike to waste people's time, and
I'm one that does not like mytime wasted.
I don't think anybody is onthat.
So he is one of those that likesto know, and I never feel like
(03:23):
he's wasting my time because helegitimately loves the
breakdowns, whether I do it likevia podcast sometimes, or if I
will send him some information,you know, and if I'm able to
summarize it in a text message,which I'm not always able to.
I mean, sometimes there's deeperthings.
I might be able to say, youknow, when I see you, I'll try
(03:44):
to explain that a little better,whatever.
But whatever the case may be, heabsolutely is the type of person
that gets motivated to do morewhen he hears it.
And that's a big part of what Ilike to do.
Like, that's a big part of myjob is how can I facilitate
somebody getting better and whatworks for them?
(04:04):
Because everybody is different.
All right.
So I told him, I said, yeah, Imean, I'm gonna do a podcast,
but keep in mind that like noteverybody really likes the
technical stuff.
But then again, they have theright to go, I don't want to
listen, right?
So we're gonna talk about whythings can be super complicated
(04:25):
and then why it's really notthat complicated and why these
two things are the same thing.
So this all comes up because wewere talking about soreness and
we're talking about DOMS, whichstands for delayed onset muscle
soreness.
And there's been all thesetheories through the years as
(04:48):
far as what DOMS is, and it'sbeen kind of quite entertaining.
Um, you know, most research hasalways pointed to the fact that
DOMS, delayed onset musclesoreness, you know, that feeling
in your muscles after you've hada particularly different kind of
workout, I wasn't gonna say hardworkout because that doesn't
always do it, but somethingdifferent, or oftentimes happens
(05:12):
with an eccentric load, meaninga lot of negatives, or if you're
a runner and you did a race oryou ran on a different terrain
that requires a lot of downhillrunning, then that's a lot of
eccentric loading.
We tend to get more sore fromthat than we would going up a
hill.
So it's not always the hardworkout, and that's kind of what
got us into the subject.
(05:34):
It's not always the hard workoutthat's going to create DOMS.
All right.
Now, but getting back to this,so the ultimate belief through
the years has been that it'sbeen tiny little microfiber
tears in the muscle, whichcreates the DOMS, the soreness
in the muscles.
And, you know, that's prettymuch widely believed, and that's
(05:56):
what it is.
Now you've had other people comeout and say, no, no, no, no.
It's inflammation around themuscle.
It's like, well, okay, that'skind of the same thing.
Like, it's just there's going tobe some micro tears, just like
you would if you overstretch,and kind of that's what you're
doing when you strength train.
You're creating little microtears.
(06:16):
So inflammation is going to comewhenever there's going to be any
form of micro tears, okay?
But then you've had these kindof like, oh, it's leftover
lactic acid.
You had that kind of theorybouncing around for a while.
That's what DOMS is.
Oh, no.
So lactic acid is a byproduct ofanaerobic metabolism.
(06:38):
So it's in the bloodstream, it'sthat feeling you get when you're
doing leg extensions orwhatever, and the muscles start
burning.
So what you're feeling is aninflux of lactic acid into the
bloodstream, which is in themuscles, and you're feeling it
directly there.
Well, as soon as you stop, asyou know, that lactic acid goes
away immediately.
So then it's not like it justsits there in the cells, right?
(07:02):
I mean, anybody with any sort ofbiology degree would go, oh,
well, that's true.
That's impossible.
And it is impossible.
So people would bounce aroundthe idea that that's what it
was.
And then there was all theseother things that people used to
claim.
I don't know why they argueabout stupid stuff like that,
because we know what DOMS is.
But then he said later, and thisis what sparked the important
(07:22):
part of the conversation, isthat he goes, Well, so I was
surprised I didn't get very sorefrom these hamstring curls, the
leg curls, because he's gotincredibly tight hamstrings, and
we often don't hit themisolaterally, and we decided to,
or I decided to, and you know,he really felt it, but then he
(07:43):
was surprised he wasn't as sore.
And that's when I made thecasual comment.
I said, Well, you know, sorenessisn't always an indicator of
progress.
And and he understands that, Ithink, for the most part.
But then he said, But isn't itsomewhat of an indicator?
You know, I had to think, Imean, yeah, I mean, if we're
(08:05):
gonna say somewhat, yeah, butnot really.
So, and then I explained to himlike there's a lot of damage
that goes on when we strengthtrain.
And like when we typically feelsoreness in the muscle, so what
happens often is that when youtrain heavier or you train at
(08:30):
it's not even heavier, if youtrain at stretched positions, or
as I said earlier, if you aredoing more eccentric loading.
So, what I mean by stretchposition, so let's look at a fly
for the pectoralis major versusa chest press.
So, in a chest press, it's kindof more of a controlled range of
(08:52):
motion, and you are notnecessarily stretching the
pectoralis major a whole lotunless you're really putting
your hands out wide and tryingto do it.
So there is a normal range ofmotion, but you're not
necessarily working that pecfrom an overly stretched
position like you would with afly.
Now pretend you're supine, whichmeans on your back, and you've
(09:15):
got your dumbbells above you.
But a client do flies today forthe first time.
So maybe she can picture thatright now.
And so now you're bringing yourarms out to the side, which we
call horizontal A B andadduction, and now you're
bringing them back in.
So as you're going down intoabduction, you are now
(09:36):
stretching the pectoralis major.
So if you have not doneresistance exercise in a
stretched position, you aregonna get really sore.
Does that mean now your pecs aregonna grow more than usual when
you normally do like a benchpress or a chest press?
No, it doesn't necessarily meanthat.
(09:57):
Like there are other variablesinvolved.
So what tends to happen, sothere's a difference between
maximal strength, generalstrength, and hypertrophy.
Now, and this is where it'slike, well, it's more
complicated than that, but it'salso more simple, okay, or
(10:17):
simpler, or at least the way weget there is simpler.
But so there's a differencethough between those three types
of adaptations.
Now, adaptations means asemi-permanent change.
So that means that we havecreated the environment where if
the person does what they needto do, an adaptation will occur.
(10:39):
So hypertrophy, which ismuscular cell enlargement, is an
adaptation that many peoplewant, many bodybuilders want,
many guys want.
And, you know, now in 2025, morewomen want.
For the longest time, it was,well, I don't want to get
bigger.
Now they're understanding that.
Well, that's not really whathappens, but everybody wants to
increase their muscle tone andsize to an extent because it
(11:02):
raises the metabolism.
So now it's not asgender-specific as it used to
be, thank goodness, because thatused to be one of the real
annoying things about my job.
So there's that adaptation.
Muscular cell enlargement.
You say, well, that alwayshappens when you're getting
stronger.
No, not always.
It is not a direct one-to-onerelationship.
(11:24):
There's a correlativerelationship more.
So then there's generalstrength.
So general strength is when themuscles themselves are stronger.
And general strength tends tofall more in line with, say,
hypertrophy.
You can kind of get a you can'tget any of it without the other,
but you can kind of focus moreon strength and less on
(11:45):
hypertrophy.
If you don't go to failure perse, because you're not going to
create the metabolic damage thathappens when we go through
failure in a set.
But they're more related to eachother than not related to each
other.
And then finally, and there'sothers, there's also endurance,
but I'm not even going therebecause it's not really relative
(12:05):
to what I'm trying to explain toyou today.
Then there is maximal strength.
Now, maximal strength means themost weight you can push, the
highest load you can use to moveone time.
So that's what maximal strengthis.
So when you think of, say, abench press, you know, a young
(12:26):
man wants to say, Oh, I canbench press 300 pounds.
He's talking maximal strength.
Or I want to squat 500 pounds.
That's maximal strength.
That's what like power lifterscare about.
That's what high school kidsoften care about.
That's what kids that play, youknow, contact sports care about,
or even non-contact sports likebaseball, because scouts look at
(12:48):
that and go, oh, he's he'sstrong.
He's got weight room strength,he can bench this.
So that's maximal strength.
Now, in the real world, and inthe adult world, that's not very
practical, right?
Because we don't walk around anddo like one lifts often.
You can say, well, if you do,then the 10 lifts are easier.
That is true.
But it's just also like maybenot the safest thing to do.
(13:11):
And there's better ways to spendyour gym time unless you want to
be a power lifter or unless likethat is your goal.
Hey, knock yourself out.
Like if you still make benchpress as much weight as you can,
your ultimate goal.
I did that when I was 13, 14, 15years old, probably a little bit
older.
Like that was the thing wethought was so important as
(13:32):
teenage boys in the 1980s.
You know, now I'm like, uh, whocares, right?
Um, well, I was gonna tell afunny story that one of my
professors in college looked atme one time when I was talking
about it and literally said thatto me, Maxwell, who cares?
If you had that and a milliondollars, you'd still only have a
million dollars.
And I started laughing.
Anyway, God love Mr.
Gurgly.
So um, yeah, I mean, who cares?
(13:53):
It doesn't really matter.
It's it's more important, Ithink, and I think most health
experts would say to havegeneral strength.
Like you generally want to bestrong.
So what happens though whenyou're training really heavy,
like when you're doing loadslike less than five reps to
failure, that's that's what wecall heavy, heavy loads.
(14:13):
What happens is you get a lot ofdamage to the actual muscle
fibers, like literally damage tothe muscle fibers.
So there is there are proteinsthat are within every muscle
fiber called actin and myosin.
All right, they are themyofilaments within the protein
fibers.
(14:34):
What happens is theycross-bridge each other.
That's what a muscularcontraction is.
The actin crosses over themyosin.
I shouldn't say crossover, theycome together, all right?
They meet in the middle, so tosay.
Now, when they cross a certainpoint, that's like that point of
no return.
So if they're going to contract,they contract all the way,
(14:56):
right?
That's what muscle fibers do.
If it's going to fire, it'sgoing to fire all the way.
It's not going to fire halfway.
All right.
So what happens is when theactin is moving towards the
myosin and the myosin is movingtowards the actin, eventually it
reaches a point called theZ-band.
When the Z-band crosses, you canthink of a railroad track kind
(15:17):
of a deal.
And when they cross-bridge eachother, the muscle is as
contracted as it can be.
So what happens then is theactin and the myosin, because of
that explosive failure, likereally being brought together,
it gets kind of like destroyed.
(15:38):
The actin and the myosin breakdown significantly.
So the muscle's got to repairitself to come back stronger.
And so that person will getmaximally stronger.
And probably training reallyheavy like that, you're going to
get enough muscle damage whereyou're really sore.
So you're going to most likely,not always, but most likely.
(15:59):
And if if you do that along withdoing something in a stretched
position, for example, if you dolike pec flies, really, really
heavy, like sets of three orfour, your pecs are going to be
sore.
I don't care how long you'vebeen working out.
All right.
So if you do that, you're goingto get a lot of muscle damage,
you're going to be sore.
So as I said earlier, it is hardto do one without the other.
(16:22):
So most likely you're going toexperience some hypertrophy as
well.
So muscle cell enlargement.
Now, the ultimate goal ismaximal strength, but most
likely through damaging themuscle, the muscles are going to
come back stronger and bigger.
And so there will be somehypertrophy.
But guess what, folks?
Without the metabolic damage tothe muscle, without the change
(16:42):
in the metabolism, there isn'tgoing to be the swelling of the
muscle that you're going to see.
You're going to see themechanical breakdown of the
muscle fibers, the actin and themyosin, which have to be
repaired.
And of course, how do we repairthat?
Principle of what?
Recuperation.
(17:02):
So you have to make sure thatthe fuel is there, the protein
and the carbohydrates, and youhave to make sure that the rest
is there.
So in other words, if you got upthe next day, I keep using pec
flies as the example, and youdid it the next day, there is no
way your pecs are going to growbecause now they're the
actinomyosin is, you know, Idon't want to say destroyed, but
definitely break broken down andinjured, so to say.
(17:26):
And if you continue to pull it,just think about like pulling
skin, right?
Pulling like a scab, right?
I mean, literally your musclesare trying to scab over and
heal, and you just rip the scaboff again.
So you're never going to grow.
It isn't going to happen, allright?
But you can train for maximalstrength like that and not
(17:48):
necessarily train forhypertrophy, all right?
And vice versa.
So let's say somebody only caresabout muscular size, then they
wouldn't worry about that musclefiber damage as much.
They wouldn't worry about thedamage to the actinomyosin.
So they wouldn't have to trainas heavy.
(18:10):
And when I say heavy, I meanheavy, heavy for them.
Like heavy is relative.
I mean, I once knew a guy when Iworked out down in New Smyrna
that could close grip 500 pounds10 times.
If you don't work out, maybe youdon't know what that means, but
let me tell you something.
That is beast mode type stuff,right?
So that is crazy strong to beable to do that.
(18:34):
But for him, because he can doit 10 times, the 500 isn't
heavy.
In other words, for him tocreate that kind of damage.
So let's see, let me do the mathhere real quick.
So five, so 10 reps is typicallyequivalent to 75% of your one
rep max.
So let's see, the 75% of 500.
(18:55):
So yeah, he would have to beupwards around 650, which he
could bench before he reallyfelt like he's in that three to
four to five rep range.
All right.
So that 500 pounds, if he's usedto it and he's not stretching,
not going to get overly sore,right?
So again, it's relative.
So when we talk about heavyloads, we're really talking
(19:16):
about your maximal lifts you cando like under five reps.
That's what we really kind ofcall heavy.
You know, maximal loads, whichagain, for 99% of the
population, it's silly to do.
General strength typicallyoccurs like mostly between 8 and
12, which is why you so oftensee that rep range being used
with a little bit higher and alittle bit lower here or there.
(19:37):
But that's like general strengthranges there.
So when we say heavy, we meanlike that 5 RM and heavier for
anybody because it's relative,right?
So if you wanted thehypertrophy, mostly like again,
they go together, but youwouldn't have to train as heavy.
(19:57):
You need more metabolic fatigue,which means that you're trying
to get that lactic acid builtinto the muscles.
When you're training with reallyheavy loads, like five and less,
you're not gonna feel a burn.
You're not into anaerobicmetabolism yet.
You're in what we call theimmediate energy cycle.
You're not in anaerobicmetabolism, so you're not gonna
(20:17):
get the metabolic fatigue.
To grow the muscles,hypertrophy, you need the
metabolic fatigue because here'swhy.
You need human growth hormoneand testosterone.
And we all have testosterone.
Ladies, you just have less, butthere we all have testosterone.
When we're in the anaerobicmetabolism and you feel the
(20:38):
burn, we're also getting a biginflux of human growth hormone,
um, insulin growth factor F,okay, so that's another form of
an anabolic hormone, and then umtestosterone.
They all are into the muscles,get secreted into the muscles,
and we there we can't raise ourresting levels of these
(20:59):
hormones, which is why somepeople see depleted states,
which is why some people takethings they shouldn't take, in
my opinion, shouldn't take.
But like that's why people dothat, all right, because we
can't raise our resting levels.
But while we're working out inanaerobic metabolism, we are
getting an influx of thosehormones.
So say, so if you want to growthe muscles, you need to create
(21:20):
the swelling in the muscle.
You need to create theinflammation in the muscle, you
need to get the blood in themuscle, you need to get the pump
in the muscle.
So, what that means is it's notabout going really heavy.
It's about using moderate loadsand going to failure.
So you can kind of get morehypertrophy, but less maximal
strength.
So you're not always going toget sore, but you're still
(21:41):
having metabolic damage.
And by the way, the metabolicdamage can create as much
problems with recovery as musclesoreness.
I mean, a lot of runners who runa lot, they spend a lot of time
in that no man's land, meaningit's kind of comfortably hard,
and they create a lot of thatmetabolic damage, and then they
don't realize they're getting soovertrained.
(22:01):
And, you know, it creates asystemic problem.
They don't sleep as well,they're not motivated, their
testosterone levels change,their progesterone levels
change.
So, like you can create just asmuch fatigue problems by really
metabolically blasting yourself,just as you could really doing
training heavy and doing musclefiber damage.
(22:22):
So the bottom line is that youcan kind of break it up.
And so soreness isn't always agreat indicator.
And we have to think do we wantmaximal strength, general
strength, hypertrophy?
Because then the goal of theworkout changes.
So that's kind of like whatphysiologically happens, and
it's kind of complicated, right?
(22:43):
And I can go into more detail onthat, and I like going into more
detail on that.
Like I like talking about thatkind of stuff, it's kind of fun.
Talk about percentages and allthat stuff, but I promised you I
was going to tell you how it'slike also that simple.
Here's how it's that simple.
Overload.
Like all this is true, but itreally shouldn't change how you
(23:04):
work out.
That's why it's kind of like,well, yeah, here's the
physiological like confusion ofit and what happens in the
muscle.
But then it's also, well, soRob, what you're telling me is
if I want to build size and morethan strength, again, I don't
want to confuse you.
They still happen together justto different degrees.
So I want to focus more on beingbigger so I can go to the beach
(23:28):
and have all these big beachmuscles.
I don't care how much I benchpress.
So all I have to do then isfocus on more moderate loads and
go to failure and get a pump anda burn and all those good
things.
Yes.
Oh, well, I was kind of alreadydoing that.
Okay.
And you're now telling methough, if I really want to
(23:48):
like, you know, change myprogram and work on total
maximal strength, or I want tohelp my kids do that because
he's 18 years old and he wants acollege scholarship, and the
scouts are saying he needs tosee greater strength in his
squat and his bench press, thenhe's wasting his time with high
reps and moderate high reps, andhe should focus on heavy loads,
(24:09):
of course, safely and focusingon compound movements and things
like that.
Yes, it's that simple.
Oh, I was already doing that.
We were training kind of heavy,you know, by doing overload.
So every time he came to thegarage with me and we worked
out, we always tried to benchpress more weight anyway.
Okay, there you go.
So, see, all the practicaladvice you get out there, we
(24:29):
still follow.
Like it's all kind of true.
Like, I don't think I told youanything you may not already
know.
I mean, we we probably know ifwe want to get maximally strong,
we have to use maximal weights.
And if we want to get stronger,we just have to use more weights
or more load than we currentlyuse.
If we wanted to add biggermuscles, we're probably gonna
(24:51):
have to target those muscles,you know, and and do a variety
of exercises.
So I don't think I've told youanything you don't know, but
hopefully I kind of told youwhy.
And maybe you're one of thosepeople that really, really helps
you to do that.
Um, so there you go to ourclient out there that wanted to
know this information.
(25:11):
And as I've said before, if ifyou want to know something
specific, I love answeringquestions.
Email me, text me if you have mynumber, 386-299-0540.
There it is.
If you don't, text me and say,Hey Rob, what about this?
Can you talk about this nexttime?
I would love to do it.
And something else I wouldreally love is that you please
(25:33):
send this to people and ask themto download it because then my
numbers get better.
And when my numbers get better,I get money back and don't have
to spend as much money producingthe podcast.
So it is a win-win.
And it's so simple that all youhave to do is hit automatic
download.
And if you feel like it'sclogging up your phone or
(25:55):
whatever, then once a month,take it out, you know.
So we both win.
All right, see you next time.
Thank you for listening totoday's program.
I ask you to please follow theshow wherever you get your
podcasts, and please selectautomatic download because that
really helps the show.
Now I want to thank OverheadDoor of Daytona Beach, the
(26:19):
area's premier garage doorcompany.
They have the best product, theyhave the best service.
I personally vouch for Jeff andZach Hawk, the owners.
They are great people with agreat company.
If you have any garage doorneeds, please give them a shout
at 386 222 3165.
Welcome to There is a Method to the Madness.
My name is Rob Maxwell, and I'man exercise physiologist and
personal trainer.
I am the owner of Maxwell'sfitness programs, and I've been
in business since 1994.
The purpose of this podcast isto get to the real deal of what
really works and mostimportantly why things work.
(00:21):
Hence the name, There Is aMethod to the Madness.
Before I get to today's show, Iwant to thank Jonathan and Lynn
Gilden of the Gilden Group atRealty Pros.
They are committed to providingthe highest level of customer
service in home sales.
Why don't you give them a shoutand figure out what your home is
worth?
386-451-2412.
(00:46):
All right, let's talk about somefitness here.
When somebody says, Well, it'scomplicated, or they might go in
the other direction and say,Well, it's really that simple.
(01:08):
And have you ever thought thatthese two totally contrasting
ideas are actually a big part ofbeing the same thing?
Well, I'm going to talk aboutthat, how it relates to a
subject today on physicalfitness.
I had a client like something Isent them in response to a text
(01:32):
kind of like explaining thedifference of morphological
hypertrophy and breakdown ofmuscle cells and all this like
complicated stuff because hereally kind of likes that stuff.
Like he's interested in it.
Um, he's one of those types ofpeople that if he understands
(01:54):
like what's happening, then heis more able to comprehend what
he needs to do.
And not everybody's like that.
I mean, I've been uh and there'snot a right, there's not a
wrong, there's not a good,there's not a bad.
I mean, I've been doing this areally long time.
And uh everybody's different,you know.
Some people are like, you know,I don't give a rat's fanny about
(02:19):
any of that.
Just tell me what the frickin'do.
And other people are like, wantbreakdowns, right?
And I'm good with it either way.
The only time I'm not good withit is if somebody's like
purposely being passiveaggressive and uh, you know,
challenging things.
And then maybe I know themalready, and so I know they're
(02:43):
not really like asking theinformation so they can get
better, they're more or lessasking the information so it can
stall them to get better, ifthat makes any sense.
So, in other words, they mightbe stalling, and I just know
that they're really just notcoming from a good place when
they're asking me questions.
(03:03):
I mean, for the most part, likeI said, I love questions, but
I've been doing this a longtime.
And I know that some people justlike to waste people's time, and
I'm one that does not like mytime wasted.
I don't think anybody is onthat.
So he is one of those that likesto know, and I never feel like
(03:23):
he's wasting my time because helegitimately loves the
breakdowns, whether I do it likevia podcast sometimes, or if I
will send him some information,you know, and if I'm able to
summarize it in a text message,which I'm not always able to.
I mean, sometimes there's deeperthings.
I might be able to say, youknow, when I see you, I'll try
(03:44):
to explain that a little better,whatever.
But whatever the case may be, heabsolutely is the type of person
that gets motivated to do morewhen he hears it.
And that's a big part of what Ilike to do.
Like, that's a big part of myjob is how can I facilitate
somebody getting better and whatworks for them?
(04:04):
Because everybody is different.
All right.
So I told him, I said, yeah, Imean, I'm gonna do a podcast,
but keep in mind that like noteverybody really likes the
technical stuff.
But then again, they have theright to go, I don't want to
listen, right?
So we're gonna talk about whythings can be super complicated
(04:25):
and then why it's really notthat complicated and why these
two things are the same thing.
So this all comes up because wewere talking about soreness and
we're talking about DOMS, whichstands for delayed onset muscle
soreness.
And there's been all thesetheories through the years as
(04:48):
far as what DOMS is, and it'sbeen kind of quite entertaining.
Um, you know, most research hasalways pointed to the fact that
DOMS, delayed onset musclesoreness, you know, that feeling
in your muscles after you've hada particularly different kind of
workout, I wasn't gonna say hardworkout because that doesn't
always do it, but somethingdifferent, or oftentimes happens
(05:12):
with an eccentric load, meaninga lot of negatives, or if you're
a runner and you did a race oryou ran on a different terrain
that requires a lot of downhillrunning, then that's a lot of
eccentric loading.
We tend to get more sore fromthat than we would going up a
hill.
So it's not always the hardworkout, and that's kind of what
got us into the subject.
(05:34):
It's not always the hard workoutthat's going to create DOMS.
All right.
Now, but getting back to this,so the ultimate belief through
the years has been that it'sbeen tiny little microfiber
tears in the muscle, whichcreates the DOMS, the soreness
in the muscles.
And, you know, that's prettymuch widely believed, and that's
(05:56):
what it is.
Now you've had other people comeout and say, no, no, no, no.
It's inflammation around themuscle.
It's like, well, okay, that'skind of the same thing.
Like, it's just there's going tobe some micro tears, just like
you would if you overstretch,and kind of that's what you're
doing when you strength train.
You're creating little microtears.
(06:16):
So inflammation is going to comewhenever there's going to be any
form of micro tears, okay?
But then you've had these kindof like, oh, it's leftover
lactic acid.
You had that kind of theorybouncing around for a while.
That's what DOMS is.
Oh, no.
So lactic acid is a byproduct ofanaerobic metabolism.
(06:38):
So it's in the bloodstream, it'sthat feeling you get when you're
doing leg extensions orwhatever, and the muscles start
burning.
So what you're feeling is aninflux of lactic acid into the
bloodstream, which is in themuscles, and you're feeling it
directly there.
Well, as soon as you stop, asyou know, that lactic acid goes
away immediately.
So then it's not like it justsits there in the cells, right?
(07:02):
I mean, anybody with any sort ofbiology degree would go, oh,
well, that's true.
That's impossible.
And it is impossible.
So people would bounce aroundthe idea that that's what it
was.
And then there was all theseother things that people used to
claim.
I don't know why they argueabout stupid stuff like that,
because we know what DOMS is.
But then he said later, and thisis what sparked the important
(07:22):
part of the conversation, isthat he goes, Well, so I was
surprised I didn't get very sorefrom these hamstring curls, the
leg curls, because he's gotincredibly tight hamstrings, and
we often don't hit themisolaterally, and we decided to,
or I decided to, and you know,he really felt it, but then he
(07:43):
was surprised he wasn't as sore.
And that's when I made thecasual comment.
I said, Well, you know, sorenessisn't always an indicator of
progress.
And and he understands that, Ithink, for the most part.
But then he said, But isn't itsomewhat of an indicator?
You know, I had to think, Imean, yeah, I mean, if we're
(08:05):
gonna say somewhat, yeah, butnot really.
So, and then I explained to himlike there's a lot of damage
that goes on when we strengthtrain.
And like when we typically feelsoreness in the muscle, so what
happens often is that when youtrain heavier or you train at
(08:30):
it's not even heavier, if youtrain at stretched positions, or
as I said earlier, if you aredoing more eccentric loading.
So, what I mean by stretchposition, so let's look at a fly
for the pectoralis major versusa chest press.
So, in a chest press, it's kindof more of a controlled range of
(08:52):
motion, and you are notnecessarily stretching the
pectoralis major a whole lotunless you're really putting
your hands out wide and tryingto do it.
So there is a normal range ofmotion, but you're not
necessarily working that pecfrom an overly stretched
position like you would with afly.
Now pretend you're supine, whichmeans on your back, and you've
(09:15):
got your dumbbells above you.
But a client do flies today forthe first time.
So maybe she can picture thatright now.
And so now you're bringing yourarms out to the side, which we
call horizontal A B andadduction, and now you're
bringing them back in.
So as you're going down intoabduction, you are now
(09:36):
stretching the pectoralis major.
So if you have not doneresistance exercise in a
stretched position, you aregonna get really sore.
Does that mean now your pecs aregonna grow more than usual when
you normally do like a benchpress or a chest press?
No, it doesn't necessarily meanthat.
(09:57):
Like there are other variablesinvolved.
So what tends to happen, sothere's a difference between
maximal strength, generalstrength, and hypertrophy.
Now, and this is where it'slike, well, it's more
complicated than that, but it'salso more simple, okay, or
(10:17):
simpler, or at least the way weget there is simpler.
But so there's a differencethough between those three types
of adaptations.
Now, adaptations means asemi-permanent change.
So that means that we havecreated the environment where if
the person does what they needto do, an adaptation will occur.
(10:39):
So hypertrophy, which ismuscular cell enlargement, is an
adaptation that many peoplewant, many bodybuilders want,
many guys want.
And, you know, now in 2025, morewomen want.
For the longest time, it was,well, I don't want to get
bigger.
Now they're understanding that.
Well, that's not really whathappens, but everybody wants to
increase their muscle tone andsize to an extent because it
(11:02):
raises the metabolism.
So now it's not asgender-specific as it used to
be, thank goodness, because thatused to be one of the real
annoying things about my job.
So there's that adaptation.
Muscular cell enlargement.
You say, well, that alwayshappens when you're getting
stronger.
No, not always.
It is not a direct one-to-onerelationship.
(11:24):
There's a correlativerelationship more.
So then there's generalstrength.
So general strength is when themuscles themselves are stronger.
And general strength tends tofall more in line with, say,
hypertrophy.
You can kind of get a you can'tget any of it without the other,
but you can kind of focus moreon strength and less on
(11:45):
hypertrophy.
If you don't go to failure perse, because you're not going to
create the metabolic damage thathappens when we go through
failure in a set.
But they're more related to eachother than not related to each
other.
And then finally, and there'sothers, there's also endurance,
but I'm not even going therebecause it's not really relative
(12:05):
to what I'm trying to explain toyou today.
Then there is maximal strength.
Now, maximal strength means themost weight you can push, the
highest load you can use to moveone time.
So that's what maximal strengthis.
So when you think of, say, abench press, you know, a young
(12:26):
man wants to say, Oh, I canbench press 300 pounds.
He's talking maximal strength.
Or I want to squat 500 pounds.
That's maximal strength.
That's what like power lifterscare about.
That's what high school kidsoften care about.
That's what kids that play, youknow, contact sports care about,
or even non-contact sports likebaseball, because scouts look at
(12:48):
that and go, oh, he's he'sstrong.
He's got weight room strength,he can bench this.
So that's maximal strength.
Now, in the real world, and inthe adult world, that's not very
practical, right?
Because we don't walk around anddo like one lifts often.
You can say, well, if you do,then the 10 lifts are easier.
That is true.
But it's just also like maybenot the safest thing to do.
(13:11):
And there's better ways to spendyour gym time unless you want to
be a power lifter or unless likethat is your goal.
Hey, knock yourself out.
Like if you still make benchpress as much weight as you can,
your ultimate goal.
I did that when I was 13, 14, 15years old, probably a little bit
older.
Like that was the thing wethought was so important as
(13:32):
teenage boys in the 1980s.
You know, now I'm like, uh, whocares, right?
Um, well, I was gonna tell afunny story that one of my
professors in college looked atme one time when I was talking
about it and literally said thatto me, Maxwell, who cares?
If you had that and a milliondollars, you'd still only have a
million dollars.
And I started laughing.
Anyway, God love Mr.
Gurgly.
So um, yeah, I mean, who cares?
(13:53):
It doesn't really matter.
It's it's more important, Ithink, and I think most health
experts would say to havegeneral strength.
Like you generally want to bestrong.
So what happens though whenyou're training really heavy,
like when you're doing loadslike less than five reps to
failure, that's that's what wecall heavy, heavy loads.
(14:13):
What happens is you get a lot ofdamage to the actual muscle
fibers, like literally damage tothe muscle fibers.
So there is there are proteinsthat are within every muscle
fiber called actin and myosin.
All right, they are themyofilaments within the protein
fibers.
(14:34):
What happens is theycross-bridge each other.
That's what a muscularcontraction is.
The actin crosses over themyosin.
I shouldn't say crossover, theycome together, all right?
They meet in the middle, so tosay.
Now, when they cross a certainpoint, that's like that point of
no return.
So if they're going to contract,they contract all the way,
(14:56):
right?
That's what muscle fibers do.
If it's going to fire, it'sgoing to fire all the way.
It's not going to fire halfway.
All right.
So what happens is when theactin is moving towards the
myosin and the myosin is movingtowards the actin, eventually it
reaches a point called theZ-band.
When the Z-band crosses, you canthink of a railroad track kind
(15:17):
of a deal.
And when they cross-bridge eachother, the muscle is as
contracted as it can be.
So what happens then is theactin and the myosin, because of
that explosive failure, likereally being brought together,
it gets kind of like destroyed.
(15:38):
The actin and the myosin breakdown significantly.
So the muscle's got to repairitself to come back stronger.
And so that person will getmaximally stronger.
And probably training reallyheavy like that, you're going to
get enough muscle damage whereyou're really sore.
So you're going to most likely,not always, but most likely.
(15:59):
And if if you do that along withdoing something in a stretched
position, for example, if you dolike pec flies, really, really
heavy, like sets of three orfour, your pecs are going to be
sore.
I don't care how long you'vebeen working out.
All right.
So if you do that, you're goingto get a lot of muscle damage,
you're going to be sore.
So as I said earlier, it is hardto do one without the other.
(16:22):
So most likely you're going toexperience some hypertrophy as
well.
So muscle cell enlargement.
Now, the ultimate goal ismaximal strength, but most
likely through damaging themuscle, the muscles are going to
come back stronger and bigger.
And so there will be somehypertrophy.
But guess what, folks?
Without the metabolic damage tothe muscle, without the change
(16:42):
in the metabolism, there isn'tgoing to be the swelling of the
muscle that you're going to see.
You're going to see themechanical breakdown of the
muscle fibers, the actin and themyosin, which have to be
repaired.
And of course, how do we repairthat?
Principle of what?
Recuperation.
(17:02):
So you have to make sure thatthe fuel is there, the protein
and the carbohydrates, and youhave to make sure that the rest
is there.
So in other words, if you got upthe next day, I keep using pec
flies as the example, and youdid it the next day, there is no
way your pecs are going to growbecause now they're the
actinomyosin is, you know, Idon't want to say destroyed, but
definitely break broken down andinjured, so to say.
(17:26):
And if you continue to pull it,just think about like pulling
skin, right?
Pulling like a scab, right?
I mean, literally your musclesare trying to scab over and
heal, and you just rip the scaboff again.
So you're never going to grow.
It isn't going to happen, allright?
But you can train for maximalstrength like that and not
(17:48):
necessarily train forhypertrophy, all right?
And vice versa.
So let's say somebody only caresabout muscular size, then they
wouldn't worry about that musclefiber damage as much.
They wouldn't worry about thedamage to the actinomyosin.
So they wouldn't have to trainas heavy.
(18:10):
And when I say heavy, I meanheavy, heavy for them.
Like heavy is relative.
I mean, I once knew a guy when Iworked out down in New Smyrna
that could close grip 500 pounds10 times.
If you don't work out, maybe youdon't know what that means, but
let me tell you something.
That is beast mode type stuff,right?
So that is crazy strong to beable to do that.
(18:34):
But for him, because he can doit 10 times, the 500 isn't
heavy.
In other words, for him tocreate that kind of damage.
So let's see, let me do the mathhere real quick.
So five, so 10 reps is typicallyequivalent to 75% of your one
rep max.
So let's see, the 75% of 500.
(18:55):
So yeah, he would have to beupwards around 650, which he
could bench before he reallyfelt like he's in that three to
four to five rep range.
All right.
So that 500 pounds, if he's usedto it and he's not stretching,
not going to get overly sore,right?
So again, it's relative.
So when we talk about heavyloads, we're really talking
(19:16):
about your maximal lifts you cando like under five reps.
That's what we really kind ofcall heavy.
You know, maximal loads, whichagain, for 99% of the
population, it's silly to do.
General strength typicallyoccurs like mostly between 8 and
12, which is why you so oftensee that rep range being used
with a little bit higher and alittle bit lower here or there.
(19:37):
But that's like general strengthranges there.
So when we say heavy, we meanlike that 5 RM and heavier for
anybody because it's relative,right?
So if you wanted thehypertrophy, mostly like again,
they go together, but youwouldn't have to train as heavy.
(19:57):
You need more metabolic fatigue,which means that you're trying
to get that lactic acid builtinto the muscles.
When you're training with reallyheavy loads, like five and less,
you're not gonna feel a burn.
You're not into anaerobicmetabolism yet.
You're in what we call theimmediate energy cycle.
You're not in anaerobicmetabolism, so you're not gonna
(20:17):
get the metabolic fatigue.
To grow the muscles,hypertrophy, you need the
metabolic fatigue because here'swhy.
You need human growth hormoneand testosterone.
And we all have testosterone.
Ladies, you just have less, butthere we all have testosterone.
When we're in the anaerobicmetabolism and you feel the
(20:38):
burn, we're also getting a biginflux of human growth hormone,
um, insulin growth factor F,okay, so that's another form of
an anabolic hormone, and then umtestosterone.
They all are into the muscles,get secreted into the muscles,
and we there we can't raise ourresting levels of these
(20:59):
hormones, which is why somepeople see depleted states,
which is why some people takethings they shouldn't take, in
my opinion, shouldn't take.
But like that's why people dothat, all right, because we
can't raise our resting levels.
But while we're working out inanaerobic metabolism, we are
getting an influx of thosehormones.
So say, so if you want to growthe muscles, you need to create
(21:20):
the swelling in the muscle.
You need to create theinflammation in the muscle, you
need to get the blood in themuscle, you need to get the pump
in the muscle.
So, what that means is it's notabout going really heavy.
It's about using moderate loadsand going to failure.
So you can kind of get morehypertrophy, but less maximal
strength.
So you're not always going toget sore, but you're still
(21:41):
having metabolic damage.
And by the way, the metabolicdamage can create as much
problems with recovery as musclesoreness.
I mean, a lot of runners who runa lot, they spend a lot of time
in that no man's land, meaningit's kind of comfortably hard,
and they create a lot of thatmetabolic damage, and then they
don't realize they're getting soovertrained.
(22:01):
And, you know, it creates asystemic problem.
They don't sleep as well,they're not motivated, their
testosterone levels change,their progesterone levels
change.
So, like you can create just asmuch fatigue problems by really
metabolically blasting yourself,just as you could really doing
training heavy and doing musclefiber damage.
(22:22):
So the bottom line is that youcan kind of break it up.
And so soreness isn't always agreat indicator.
And we have to think do we wantmaximal strength, general
strength, hypertrophy?
Because then the goal of theworkout changes.
So that's kind of like whatphysiologically happens, and
it's kind of complicated, right?
(22:43):
And I can go into more detail onthat, and I like going into more
detail on that.
Like I like talking about thatkind of stuff, it's kind of fun.
Talk about percentages and allthat stuff, but I promised you I
was going to tell you how it'slike also that simple.
Here's how it's that simple.
Overload.
Like all this is true, but itreally shouldn't change how you
(23:04):
work out.
That's why it's kind of like,well, yeah, here's the
physiological like confusion ofit and what happens in the
muscle.
But then it's also, well, soRob, what you're telling me is
if I want to build size and morethan strength, again, I don't
want to confuse you.
They still happen together justto different degrees.
So I want to focus more on beingbigger so I can go to the beach
(23:28):
and have all these big beachmuscles.
I don't care how much I benchpress.
So all I have to do then isfocus on more moderate loads and
go to failure and get a pump anda burn and all those good
things.
Yes.
Oh, well, I was kind of alreadydoing that.
Okay.
And you're now telling methough, if I really want to
(23:48):
like, you know, change myprogram and work on total
maximal strength, or I want tohelp my kids do that because
he's 18 years old and he wants acollege scholarship, and the
scouts are saying he needs tosee greater strength in his
squat and his bench press, thenhe's wasting his time with high
reps and moderate high reps, andhe should focus on heavy loads,
(24:09):
of course, safely and focusingon compound movements and things
like that.
Yes, it's that simple.
Oh, I was already doing that.
We were training kind of heavy,you know, by doing overload.
So every time he came to thegarage with me and we worked
out, we always tried to benchpress more weight anyway.
Okay, there you go.
So, see, all the practicaladvice you get out there, we
(24:29):
still follow.
Like it's all kind of true.
Like, I don't think I told youanything you may not already
know.
I mean, we we probably know ifwe want to get maximally strong,
we have to use maximal weights.
And if we want to get stronger,we just have to use more weights
or more load than we currentlyuse.
If we wanted to add biggermuscles, we're probably gonna
(24:51):
have to target those muscles,you know, and and do a variety
of exercises.
So I don't think I've told youanything you don't know, but
hopefully I kind of told youwhy.
And maybe you're one of thosepeople that really, really helps
you to do that.
Um, so there you go to ourclient out there that wanted to
know this information.
(25:11):
And as I've said before, if ifyou want to know something
specific, I love answeringquestions.
Email me, text me if you have mynumber, 386-299-0540.
There it is.
If you don't, text me and say,Hey Rob, what about this?
Can you talk about this nexttime?
I would love to do it.
And something else I wouldreally love is that you please
(25:33):
send this to people and ask themto download it because then my
numbers get better.
And when my numbers get better,I get money back and don't have
to spend as much money producingthe podcast.
So it is a win-win.
And it's so simple that all youhave to do is hit automatic
download.
And if you feel like it'sclogging up your phone or
(25:55):
whatever, then once a month,take it out, you know.
So we both win.
All right, see you next time.
Thank you for listening totoday's program.
I ask you to please follow theshow wherever you get your
podcasts, and please selectautomatic download because that
really helps the show.
Now I want to thank OverheadDoor of Daytona Beach, the
(26:19):
area's premier garage doorcompany.
They have the best product, theyhave the best service.
I personally vouch for Jeff andZach Hawk, the owners.
They are great people with agreat company.
If you have any garage doorneeds, please give them a shout
at 386 222 3165.
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