: To what extent is strength training about optimal breakdown of muscles In beginner strength training the way it is usually recommended, how much is soreness, DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness), and inflammation associated

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This is, from what I can tell, four questions in one.

1) How much of strength training about optimally breaking down muscle, even for beginners?

Strength training is always about optimal muscle breakdown. However, there are varying levels of what one wants to achieve strength wise. Are you trying to train for the next strong-man contest? Mr./Mrs. Universe? Recovering from chemotherapy? Sport specific? Each one requires a different regimen, but all are geared towards optimal muscle breakdown.

Endurance training for your muscles is different as well. This style is more about getting to a certain strength point and being able to repeat the movements a lot. An elderly person, for example, would want to endurance train their muscles to help them with activities of daily living (getting out of a chair, lifting groceries, taking stairs more easily, etc.).

2) How many sets and repetitions would one need to do to achieve an optimal breakdown?

There are so many ways to answer this question it is ridiculous. It really depends on what you are trying to achieve.

3) What are appropriate rest times between sets, and then between workouts?

See question two.

4) When do routines need to be changed to keep having an optimal effect?

This depends on what you are trying to achieve... Bulking-up? Change more than you stay the same (this is still debatable, I was thinking for starters though). Just want to be able to get groceries out of the car? Don't need to change once you get to a weight that you feel meets your grocery lifting needs.

This question is VERY broad and I hope a couple of other posters can help expound on my answers.

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To what extent is the organisation of strength training [...] "just" about getting an optimal breakdown of muscles?

Strength training is about allowing you to lift more the next time: to get stronger. It's about causing an adaptation in the muscles. This is hypothesized by many to be due to "breakdown" as you call it, but that can mean something more severe than actually happens, and it is also due to neuromuscular adaptation (better recruitment of neurons).

I don't think actual underlying mechanism is very important. Your body at least acts as if this was the case. So, the model works.

I'm going to talk about stress and adaptation, rather than breakdown because I think those words better describe what is going on and don't commit to a particular model of what's actually improving at the lowest level.

do you have several sets to be able to break down muscles more than you can in one set?

If you do several sets, your muscle does more work, is more stressed, and will adapt more between now and your next workout.

Are rest periods there so that you won't be to tired to push your muscles (into more breakdown)?

Yes.

To what extent will a given breakdown have less effect if the body is used to it?

Your body will stop adapting to a given amount of stress (load, weight) after it adapts to it. This is why it should be possible, and suggested, to add weight to your lifts every workout. If your previous workout did it's job, you should be able to lift more on the subsequent one.