> I've never really understood what people mean when they talk about recovery. Is this something you can feel? Or does it mean you couldn't lift the same weight

> I've never really understood what people mean when they talk about recovery. Is this something you can feel? Or does it mean you couldn't lift the same weights the very next day or something? If you've never felt like your body was beat up for 1-2 days afterwards, then I'd suggest you've never pushed your exertion level high enough. You can certainly make good progress relatively far away from failure up to a certain point, but eventually that won't be good enough. I'd suggest your overall volume on the muscle you're hitting probably wasn't high enough. If you're just sticking to 3x5 with a simple progression, then that's pretty limiting.