Why You Should Never Be Sore
The headline of this article will spark debate. You might be questioning the credibility of such a claim and rightly so. This article will bring to light a method of training vastly unknown to the masses, yet a method of training that is fundamental to athletes. Yes, you should never be sore after working out, allow me to elaborate.
Recently, I came across a Joe Rogan podcast (as everyone does) and his guest was a man called Firas Zahabi. Firas is a world-class mixed martial arts coach. He was the trainer of the legendary George St. Pierre, a man who took UFC by storm. Firas thoroughly explains the idea of working out “smartly” and has used that exact template to train George. Mainstream media has always prompted the message to workout hard, to leave it all out on the floor. Unfortunately, that simply isn’t possible. If you are training at a high intensity every single day, then you’re actually not training at your maximum. Think about it for a second, if you give your maximum on a given day, it is impossible to reach those same heights the next day simply because of fatigue. The best sprinters in the world only sprint once or twice a week.
Firas outlines it perfectly:
“Intensity, by nature is sporadic”
Ideally, you want to be training as much as you can, as often as you can. That can be achieved by toning down the intensity of your workouts and focus on building work capacity instead. Build volume throughout the week and you’ll notice a substantial difference in your performance. Let’s take an example to further understand this training style in detail.
Say you ran your absolute max on Monday and clocked a distance of 12 km (you couldn’t physically run anymore). You would be exhausted and sore for the next 2 days. On day 4 you run 12 km again and are again sore for the next 2 days. In a span of 6 days, you covered a total distance of 24 km.
Now, what if you run 5 km every day? You wouldn’t be sore and would probably be able to run 5 km consistently every day as it is well below your maximum. If you run for 6 days, you clock a total of 30 km which is more than the 24 km you ran previously. Therefore, within a week you were able to squeeze in an extra 6km to your running. The greater the volume the greater the advantage. If you were to run with this template for a year (52 weeks) you would run a massive 312 km more compared to the intense running style.
Don’t get me wrong, intense training is important too, but it should be sporadic, not regular. You should aim to test your maximum once a week but no more than that. Anything more is just counter-intuitive and would be considered overtraining.
Flow State
During the podcast, Firas Zahabi talks about something called the flow state. It is best portrayed in the graph below. You must always aim to workout within your flow state. What does that mean? What is a Flow state? If you look at the graph, the flow state is shown as the zone between Anxiety and Boredom. In simple words, it’s the sweet spot of training. Flow state is the zone where your workouts are challenging but not too challenging, and they are fairly simple but not too simple where you are bored.
Training/ Working out should be addictive not painful. You shouldn’t feel burdened to work out, you should want to do it. That is the exact focus of flow state, when you feel that high of being in your flow state (You are enjoying your workouts) stop within the flow state. Don’t let your workouts drag into the exhaustive/painful stage. As a result of halting your workouts at just the right time, you’ll want to come back tomorrow and train again. Therefore, our main goal of creating volume is achieved. Having tried working out using flow state myself, I can confidently say that it is the best form of sustainable, long-term training. That said, in order to get the most out of your training you should as stated above, include high-intensity days to your training regime. Supplementing volume work while sporadically testing your maximum levels is a recipe for success. If George St.Pierre can succeed using this style, so can you!
