Just because your muscles aren’t sore or your blood doesn’t show damage markers doesn’t mean you’re not getting stronger—your body can adapt without those signs.

When healthy young men do a tough new workout that involves lowering weights slowly (like lowering a dumbbell), their muscles get sore and some blood markers go up, but within five days, everything goes back to normal—even if they’ve never done that workout before.

If you do hard eccentric exercises like lowering weights slowly once a week for 10 weeks, your muscles stop getting sore and damaged—even though the exercise is tough—because they get used to it.

You don’t need to feel sore or have high blood markers to get stronger—your muscles can adapt and grow without damage.

Even though your muscles feel just as sore and your blood shows similar signs of damage after doing leg exercises with your knee bent far back or only slightly bent, your muscles are actually weaker and harder to activate for longer after the deep bend version.

You don’t need to tear your muscles to make them stronger—your nervous system and muscle fibers can adapt and grow without damage.