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1) Don't be a slave to your schedule. If it's your day to work chest and shoulders, and they're still sore from the lasting pasting you gave them, then it's _not_your day to work chest and shoulders. Go work something that doesn't hurt, or do some cardio, or go home. If you tear down your muscles again before they finish rebuilding themselves from the last time, you're wasting all that effort. You won't grow fast.
It takes more discipline to know when to slip the schedule than to stick with it blindly. If your targeted muscles are always still store from the last workout, you need to change your schedule or routine. Because they shouldn't be.
2) When your workouts are going great, and you've been blazing along with significant week-by-week increases for a 8-10 weeks and you just feel like nothing can stop you -- take a week off. You may be getting ahead of your body's ability to heal itself (whether you feel sore or not), and your bod may be getting ready to drop an unexpected injury on you. Shoulders are common, so are forearms. Even though it goes against everything your body is telling you -- take a week. You don't lose anything in a week. Except a possible injury.
This has happened to me twice, and several old muscleheads I talked to say it's not uncommon at all.
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