When in doubt about how well your muscles have recovered, use this short orientation. What matters is your subjective assessment averaged over the whole week—there’s no “right” or “wrong.”
How to proceed
Ask yourself in retrospect: How did my muscles feel on average over the week? Use the following guidelines:
Underloaded
A muscle was likely underloaded if you didn’t feel it truly worked after training. Typical signs:
little to no “pump”
no noticeable tension in the muscle
no sense of muscular effort/overreaching
Recovered
A muscle is considered recovered if you clearly felt it worked after the session and it felt fresh again after 1–2 days. Signs:
noticeable tension and loading by the end of the exercises
ready for the next session after 24–48 hours
Overloaded
A muscle was overloaded if your performance clearly dropped by the end of the workout and you could still feel the session after 1–2 days. Indicators:
strong muscle soreness (sharp, stabbing sensation)
pain in adjacent joints
difficulty activating the muscle cleanly
Important notes
These guidelines are a rough orientation. Learn to consciously perceive your muscles and joints.
By assessing your muscles weekly, you’ll get better at recognizing when the load was too much, too little, or just right.
It’s perfectly normal to adjust your judgment over time. Example: After 4–5 weeks, you may realize that a previous “severely overloaded” rating was actually slightly overloaded, because you can now distinguish fatigue more clearly.
If you have further questions or suggestions, feel free to email us at support@myfitcoach.de.