If i work out a muscle and im not sore, does that mean the muscle didnt get a workout?

Question

i used to work out for about 4 months about 2 years ago. each time after working ou i was pretty sore

i just started last week. one muscle group a week. all togtther 3 wokrouts with a new muscle each time

i was realy sore the first week and swollen and i recovered in a couple days. now this week i did the workouts just like before only im not sore at all!! i dont get this. this has never happended before. its only week two and now theres no pain at all? its like i didnt even work out.

why is this happening in week two? especialy since this has never happened before when i used to workout? is it muscle memory?

and if im not sore or swollen does that mean my muscles arent growing?

Answer 1

Your body is getting used to it. Pain is caused by lactic acid

which forms if you can't get enough oxygen to your muscles resulting in anaerobic respiration.

So either your circulatory system optimized to get more blood (and thus oxygen) to your muscles or lactate is cleaned out faster.

Strange that it didn't happen before so i'm not sure. Just a hypothesis.

And pain doesn't equal muscle growth. So that should be alright.

Answer 2

You really should alternate the muscle groups even within a given week. If you over-work a muscle/muscle group, you'll end up with lots of soreness and inflammation, which is not what you want. You are risking causing injury, too.