[machomaster]

Muscle soreness is not necessary for hypertrophy, but often enough (but not always) it is a good measure of the effort/volume/weight/technique (so a proxy for the mechanical tension, the thing that we want, but it hard to measure directly).

[oarfish]

Depends, its also an indicator of novelty, and that by itself isnt useful. Once you are used to a movement and training volume, getting sore is difficult unless you ramp up the volume continuosly.

id say, never being sore at all is maybe a sign you dont do enough for optimum results, but frequently being sore means the load is too high. And for health outcomes it probably matters less.

[machomaster]

Agree.