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Strong Support

Doing a tough workout twice in a row actually protects your muscles from damage. After your first really hard session, your body adapts so that your next session won't cause muscle proteins to leak into your bloodstream like it did the first time.

40
Pro
0
Against

Evidence from Studies

Supporting (1)

40

Community contributions welcome

40

Damage and the repeated bout effect of arm, leg, and trunk muscles induced by eccentric resistance exercises

Randomized Controlled Trial
Human
2019 May

After doing a tough new workout, muscle proteins leak into the blood, but doing the same workout again two weeks later causes much less leakage and damage. This shows that repeating the exercise protects the muscles from future stress.

Contradicting (0)

0

Community contributions welcome

No contradicting evidence found

Gold Standard Evidence Needed

According to GRADE and EBM methodology, here is what ideal scientific evidence would look like to definitively prove or disprove this specific claim, ordered from strongest to weakest evidence.

Source Study

Damage and the repeated bout effect of arm, leg, and trunk muscles induced by eccentric resistance exercises

Score: 40
DOI: 10.1111/sms.13388

Similar Assertions

After the second tough arm workout, blood markers of muscle damage tend to be lower, but the difference isn't strong enough to be sure it's real.

37
0
80%

Doing a new, intense workout that focuses on lengthening muscles under tension can cause temporary muscle damage and soreness. This shows up as a noticeable drop in strength, higher pain levels, and a spike in a specific muscle enzyme in the blood for up to four days.

40
0
79%

Both heavy lifting with few reps and light lifting with many reps cause muscle damage, but neither does it more than the other.

0
46
79%

If you slow down the lowering part of weightlifting, your muscles might get more damaged and your body might release more of the hormones that help build muscle—this is what the claim says about guys who lift weights.

31
0
77%

After a tough leg workout, a blood marker of muscle damage (CK) spikes by more than 1.5 times and stays high for two days, showing the muscles are still healing.

30
0
77%