It does if you are Andy Macdonald <| sep |> Does this smell like chloroform ? is a classic pick up line . <| sep |> Measurable progress is an indicator of you doing things right . Soreness does not correlate directly with the efficacy of your training , or progress . If you claim otherwise , you ' re literally going against an overwhelming majority of athletes and trainees of a number of sports , and essentially all trainingrelated scientific studies . DOMS does not equal progress . Measurable progress equals progress . I am not saying that experiencing DOMS would be a bad thing or that it would not indicate efficacy in any case , because that wouldn ' t be true but the general principle is , indisputably , that soreness is an alarm sign from your body , signaling that it ' s not used to the stress it ' s been put through , and that signal waning as you get more used to the repeated stress is not a sign of the training effect diminishing . A terrible workout if your goal is progress would be doing something you are completely used to as you are then by definition just maintaining your current state . Undergoing unprecedented stress , i . e . progressive overload , does not necessarily result in DOMS increasing at a correlated rate . A sustainable training approach is to inch forward in training load , which can lead to DOMS disappearing altogether but measurable progress still occurs , which is an indisputable proof of the meaninglessness of DOMS in regard to making progress .