Are there any scientifically proven methods to reduce muscle soreness after hard workouts? And if so, should you?

We're back with another episode based on listener questions, and this is a good one. Besides muscle soreness, we discuss paused deadlifts and paused squats, as well as the optimal time of day for working out. See the timestamps below for all questions!

All questions for this episode came from our subreddit StrengthLog. Join us there and be on the lookout for when we post asking for listener questions; if you have one you'd like answered on the podcast!

Timestamps:

• 02:20 - Question 1: Is there a biologically optimal time of day to train?
• 10:50 - Question 2: Should you always go for perfect form, even if it means you don't "progress" in weight lifted, or is it okay to sometimes increase the weights for a set or two, without perfect form for all reps, to "push yourself"?
• 16:00 - Question 3: When will the muscle heat maps in the StrengthLog app become clickable, so that we can click a specific muscle to see which exercises we can do to train it?
• 19:00 - Question 4: Opinions on differences in usefulness between paused deadlifts and paused squats?
• 26:30 - Question 5: Are there any scientifically proven methods to reduce muscle soreness after hard workouts?
• 36:00 - Question 6: I'm new to the gym, and my grip fails before my back when deadlifting. How do I solve this?
• 41:30 - Question 7: If I am able to move significantly less weight in the hack squat machine compared to in regular barbell squats, is that a sign of me cheating in the barbell squat?

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