I hear it constantly. “Bro, I crushed legs yesterday can barely walk.” “I was in there for two and a half hours.” “I left everything on that gym floor.”
Cool story. Fun, but kinda Irrelevant to growth.
Muscle does NOT grow because:
You’re sore. Soreness indicates novel stimulus or eccentric damage. Nothing more. Some of my best growth phases came with minimal soreness because my body had adapted to the movement patterns.
You feel destroyed. Systemic fatigue isn’t a progress marker. It’s a recovery debt.
You trained for two hours. Time in gym means nothing. Zero. A focused 50-minute session with appropriate intensity destroys a meandering two-hour ego fest.
Muscle DOES grow from:
Mechanical tension. This is the primary driver. Muscles under load through a stretched position, fighting resistance. Simple.
Applied close enough to failure. You need proximity to failure for recruitment of high-threshold motor units. Not failure every set- proximity to failure, managed intelligently across your training week.
Recovered from. The stimulus means nothing if you can’t adapt to it. Sleep, nutrition, stress management these aren’t optional add-ons. They’re half the equation.
Repeated over time. Weeks. Months. Years. One great workout builds nothing. Five hundred consistent workouts build champions.
The John Meadows Philosophy
Mountain Dog talked about this constantly in his later years, after decades of learning what actually works and what just feels productive.
Stimulate, don’t annihilate.
His programming evolved toward maximizing stimulus per set while minimizing joint stress and systemic cost. He’d done the crazy volume phases. He’d pushed through injuries. He learned the hard way what sustainable progress actually requires.
The man built one of the most respected coaching legacies in bodybuilding history. Listen to what he figured out.
The Bottom Line
Pain is cheap. Anyone can create pain. Load up weight you can’t control, do sets until you’re nauseous, skip the warm-up. Congratulations you’ve generated suffering.
Progress is expensive. It demands intelligent programming, honest reflection, ego management, and patience measured in years.
Stop chasing soreness. Start chasing progress.
- Neuro
Cool story. Fun, but kinda Irrelevant to growth.
Muscle does NOT grow because:
You’re sore. Soreness indicates novel stimulus or eccentric damage. Nothing more. Some of my best growth phases came with minimal soreness because my body had adapted to the movement patterns.
You feel destroyed. Systemic fatigue isn’t a progress marker. It’s a recovery debt.
You trained for two hours. Time in gym means nothing. Zero. A focused 50-minute session with appropriate intensity destroys a meandering two-hour ego fest.
Muscle DOES grow from:
Mechanical tension. This is the primary driver. Muscles under load through a stretched position, fighting resistance. Simple.
Applied close enough to failure. You need proximity to failure for recruitment of high-threshold motor units. Not failure every set- proximity to failure, managed intelligently across your training week.
Recovered from. The stimulus means nothing if you can’t adapt to it. Sleep, nutrition, stress management these aren’t optional add-ons. They’re half the equation.
Repeated over time. Weeks. Months. Years. One great workout builds nothing. Five hundred consistent workouts build champions.
The John Meadows Philosophy
Mountain Dog talked about this constantly in his later years, after decades of learning what actually works and what just feels productive.
Stimulate, don’t annihilate.
His programming evolved toward maximizing stimulus per set while minimizing joint stress and systemic cost. He’d done the crazy volume phases. He’d pushed through injuries. He learned the hard way what sustainable progress actually requires.
The man built one of the most respected coaching legacies in bodybuilding history. Listen to what he figured out.
The Bottom Line
Pain is cheap. Anyone can create pain. Load up weight you can’t control, do sets until you’re nauseous, skip the warm-up. Congratulations you’ve generated suffering.
Progress is expensive. It demands intelligent programming, honest reflection, ego management, and patience measured in years.
Stop chasing soreness. Start chasing progress.
- Neuro
