A common belief in fitness is that if your muscles, particularly the glutes, are intensely sore the day after a workout, the training session was successful and guaranteed muscle growth. This sensation, often seen as a badge of honor, suggests the muscle fibers were challenged enough to adapt and expand. However, confusing post-exercise discomfort with the complex biological process of muscle development can lead to misguided training decisions. A scientific understanding of what causes soreness and what drives muscle growth reveals that these two phenomena are distinct and not always directly linked.
What Causes Muscle Soreness
The deep, aching tenderness that appears roughly 24 to 72 hours after unaccustomed or strenuous exercise is known as Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS). This sensation is primarily a symptom of exercise-induced muscle damage, involving microscopic tears in the muscle fibers and surrounding connective tissues. DOMS is strongly associated with exercises that involve eccentric contractions, where the muscle lengthens while under tension, such as the lowering phase of a squat or hip thrust.
These micro-tears initiate a localized inflammatory response within the muscle tissue as the body begins the repair process. This inflammation involves the release of various chemicals, which sensitize local nerve endings. It is this subsequent inflammatory cascade and the resulting fluid shifts that are responsible for the feeling of stiffness and pain, not a buildup of lactic acid, which is quickly cleared from the muscle.
Soreness is therefore more an indicator of novelty or intensity relative to your body’s current state of conditioning rather than a guaranteed measure of growth. As your glutes adapt to a new exercise or a significant increase in training volume, the severity of this soreness tends to diminish, even if the workout remains effective. A lack of soreness simply means your muscle has adapted to the specific stressor, not that the training was unproductive.
How Muscles Actually Grow
Muscle growth, or hypertrophy, is the process where muscle protein synthesis exceeds muscle protein breakdown over time, resulting in a net increase in the size of the muscle cells. This biological adaptation is driven by three primary factors stimulated during resistance training: mechanical tension, metabolic stress, and a degree of muscle damage. Mechanical tension is considered the most significant driver for increasing glute size.
Mechanical tension refers to the amount of force or load placed on the muscle fibers during an exercise, particularly in their fully stretched position. To maximize glute development, the muscle must be challenged with progressively heavier loads or increased volume over time, a principle known as progressive overload. Exercises like the hip thrust, which places maximum tension on the glutes at the peak contraction, or deep squats, which load the glutes in a stretched position, are excellent for applying tension.
Metabolic stress is the accumulation of byproducts like lactate and hydrogen ions when performing high-repetition sets with short rest periods, often creating the familiar “burning” sensation. This stress causes cell swelling, which is believed to signal an adaptive response for growth. The third factor, muscle damage, involves structural trauma to the fibers, which triggers the repair and rebuilding process. However, excessive damage can impair recovery and slow overall growth.
The Link Between Soreness and Glute Development
Soreness is a side effect of muscle damage, which is one of the three stimuli for growth, but it is not the main mechanism itself. This distinction is important for glute training, as growth can be effectively stimulated through high mechanical tension and metabolic stress without debilitating post-workout pain. Focusing solely on achieving soreness can be counterproductive, as extreme pain may reduce your ability to train the glutes effectively in subsequent sessions.
If your glutes are sore, it confirms you introduced a novel or intense stimulus, but it does not confirm the optimal application of mechanical tension for growth. The glutes can grow substantially even with minimal soreness, especially as your body becomes accustomed to a consistent routine. The most reliable indicator of glute development is the consistent increase in strength or repetitions performed (progressive overload), not the level of discomfort felt the next day.
For a successful glute development plan, tracking objective metrics like the weight lifted or the number of clean repetitions is more valuable than relying on the subjective feeling of soreness. A workout that allows for frequent, high-quality training sessions with progressive overload yields greater long-term growth than one that causes so much pain it requires several days of recovery. Therefore, focusing on consistent strength progression is the superior measure of a successful glute workout.