No 'day after' soreness. What am I doing wrong??

J

JDB-AZ

0
Hey everyone,

I have a question about my workout routine. I started back at the gym about two months ago with a primary goal of improving my body composition (currently 15%) so that eventually the ring of fat around my belly would disappear. I'm also doing a lot of weight training so that when I reach my desired body composition I'll have a little head start and can start building muscle mass. I'm at the gym 4-6 days a week and I do a 5 minute warmup, 45 minutes of weights (rotate daily between push muscles, pull muscles, and legs), and then I do between 30 and 50 minutes of cardio on a bike (alternate daily between fat burn and Heart Rate Intervals). I know 50 minutes of cardio isn't the best if I want to build muscle mass so I plan to cut back when I've cut enough fat. I finish my workout with a solid 10 minute stretch routine. So here is my question: I have not been feeling any of the muscle soreness a day or two after my workouts that I used to feel. All my exercises are 3 sets of 8-10 reps and I feel really pumped up and exhausted after lifting but I never get that wonderful sore feeling anymore. Are my weight sessions not intense enough or am I doing something wrong? Or are my long cardio sessions and new-found appreciation for stretching helping disperse the lactic acid (just a guess) or something?

I'd appreciate any input! Thanks,

Jamieson
5' 11''
180 lbs
14.8% body fat
 
While there may in fact be many things wrong with your program, absense of DOMS is not one of them. Feeling sore the day after is not an indication of a good workout, and feeling fine the day after is not an indication of a bad workout.
 
First of all, are you mixing weight lifting in the same session as cardio? That is a no-no if you want to gain muscle mass or burn stored calories. Divide that into two sessions per day instead. You are definitely overtraining if you mix both of them in the same session. I added your time and 90-110 minutes of workout is too much, especially if your goal is hypertrophy.
You write that all of your exercises are 3 sets, 8-10 reps. Well, there you have it. How can you progress if you always do the same sets and reps? Your body knows exactly how you are going to workout and you've hit a little bit of a plateau.

Here is what you want to do:
Weight lifting by itself, cardio by itself. Your cardio would benefit from getting shorter in time and more intense. Change sets, 2-6 sets. Change reps, 6-12 reps. I do understand that your goal is hypertrophy, but you do still need to change it up to progress.
Time under tension is important, repetition tempo needs to be a mixture of both slow and moderate;
eccentric contraction 4-2 seconds
isometric contraction 2-0 seconds
concentric contraction 1-2 seconds
(4/2/1-2/0/2)
Great that you warm-up and that you stretch, those are important factors!
 
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