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LINK: https://chasingstrength.com/which-kettlebell-workout-program-is-right-for-me/
If you judge the quality of your workouts by how sore you feel the next day, this video will probably change how you think about training.
Because soreness isn’t a reliable indicator of progress — especially after 40.
In fact, for a lot of men, chasing soreness is one of the main reasons training stops working.
Let me explain why.
Most of us were taught early on that soreness equals a good workout.
You workout – train hard.
You’re sore the next day.
That must mean it worked – right?
After all… it worked for all the guys in the muscle mags who we wanted to look like, so it can’t be wrong… right?
And when you’re younger, you can often get away with that “logic.”
But the truth is, soreness is really just a response to unfamiliar or excessive stress.
It doesn’t tell you whether a program is productive – it just confirms that there was muscle protein degradation.
It tells you that your body was challenged, sometimes more than it needed to be.
It doesn’t guarantee muscle protein synthesis – growth – or results.
In fact, the latest research tells us just the opposite.
Despite all the promises of growth from “blasting,” “bombing,” “blitzing,” and “crushing” found in the muscle mags we grew up with…
There is practically zero correlation between post-workout soreness, muscle growth, strength acquisition, or get more info long-term progress.
As you get older, recovery doesn’t happen on the same timeline.
You still adapt.
You can still get stronger.
But piling stress on top of stress gets more expensive.
When soreness lingers, it often interferes with:
- training frequency – your ability to workout / train on a regular basis
- movement quality – your ability to move your body through its normal ranges of motion with intention under full control
- confidence under load – the fear of missing a rep or hesitancy of not being able to lift the prescribed weight
All of which play games with your mind and steal your energy necessary to show up in other areas of your life.
And once your workouts – your training – becomes something that takes more from you than it appears to give…
your consistency starts to slip.
One of the most useful questions I ask clients is simple:
“How do you feel after you train?”
Not during the workout.
Not how hard it felt.
But how you feel later that day — and the next day.
When training is well-matched to the person, most men report:
- better energy
- improved focus
- less stiffness
- more willingness to train again
- Improved mood and overall wellbeing
- More confidence at work and in their personal lives
Those are signals worth paying attention to.
If you feel like you were hit by a Mack truck…
your hunger is raging out of control…
and your patience with your wife and kids are like the roadkill you passed on the way home…
You pushed yourself too hard.
Productive training doesn’t usually feel heroic – like heading down range, slaying a dragon, or prepping to fight Ivan Drago.
It looks like:
- controlled reps
- consistent sessions
- manageable fatigue
- and the ability to train again without hesitation
That doesn’t mean training is easy.
It means the stress is appropriate.
When training leaves you feeling better instead of beat up, you’re far more likely to keep doing it.
And over time, that’s what produces results.
For men over 40, the goal isn’t to survive workouts.
The goal is to keep training.
That requires paying attention to signals that support consistency, not just intensity – or effort.
Soreness comes and goes.
Progress comes from showing up again and again and again.
Feeling better after training isn’t a sign you didn’t do enough.
More often than not it’s a sign you did exactly what you needed.
When training supports your life instead of competing with it, everything gets easier to maintain.
And that’s what keeps you strong long-term.
Stay Strong,
Geoff Neupert.