I joined a gym a couple of weeks ago, and at first I would be very sore for a day or two after doing a weights workout. This past week, not so much. Is that normal, or is it a sign I need to make my workouts harder? The weights still feel plenty heavy, but I don’t have any soreness afterwards.
Perfectly normal.
I will feel a vague ache/fatigue the next day when I’ve had a solid workout.
Weedy, please don’t take this as offensive. Your post makes it sound as though you have absolutely no idea what you are doing. That’s not rare, most people who live in America today aren’t very active, and working out is something they rarely do.
You can get really hurt, long term hurt, if you don’t take care when working out. Bad form, incorrect weight, not paying attention to the right things when working out, all of these things can get you to tear muscles or tendons, drop weights on yourself/others, or just end up straining the wrong muscles to the point where your progress is stunted.
See a trainer, or find a workout website. Try to see past all the super macho over the top body builders and just get yourself some *basic *information. In twenty years your body will thank you.
In what way does the OP sound like he “doesn’t know what he’s doing”?
It’s perfectly normal. The soreness is called DOMS, delayed onset muscle soreness, and it diminishes when you’ve been working out more regularly. The first few times you use heavy weights to work out a muscle group it tends to be very sore the next day, but they quickly get more used to it. If I’ve been doing the same heavy weights exercises regularly I find I quickly get to the point where I don’t have much soreness the next day. It doesn’t mean the exercises aren’t working.
That said you should still be feeling something the next day, very slightly sore at least, particularly if you’re training for strength or muscle mass. If you’re literally feeling nothing at all then you might want to up the weights a bit. The standard advice is that you should also try to constantly rotate your workout - use different exercises and different weights each time as far as possible. There’s some exercises you can’t really switch out - personally I find there’s no real substitutes for squats or deadlifts, for instance, so I do them every time I’m working legs. But if you can do wide-grip pull-ups instead of rows for the back, or dumbbell presses instead of bench press for chest, or leg raises instead of sit-ups for core, it forces your muscles to keep adapting and it makes your workout that much more effective.
At least for me, when I first start a workout routine after some time off, I’m most sore on the third day after I work out (work out Monday, sorest on Wednesday).
Once I get into the swing of things though, I’m not often “sore” after a routine workout, regardless of how much weight I use or how many reps I do. I do have a certain muscular fatigue though- not painful, but definitely there.
I’d say that if you’re consistently in pain after working out, you’re probably doing something wrong.
Here is a great message board for weight lifting: Hearst Magazines
They can give you advice on your workout and such.
This is exactly right.
I want to emphasize that just because you’re not feeling sore after a workout doesn’t mean you’re not doing it correctly. If you’re doing the correct number of reps with the correct weight, and you feel like you’re doing everything cleanly, there’s really no reason that you should be doubting yourself. No or minimal soreness doesn’t even mean that your muscles have already acclimated to the exercises, and that, as a result, you’ll see weaker results. It just means that you’re not getting sore anymore.
Like isaiahrobinson wrote, you’ll want to switch up your routine every now and then. I’ve found that after three weeks of the same routine, I’ll start making less and less progress, so I’ll switch it up. And remember to take a week-long break at least every 5-6 weeks. If you don’t take that break, you can experience significantly diminished returns even if you’re switching up your routines.
How does it feel while you’re doing the routine? Are you feeling a light burn or any shaking in the muscles, or does it feel fairly easy? If the latter, it might be time to either change up the exercises or start adding weight.