I joined a fitness center last week. My trainer (who I will be seeing every six weeks) assigned me a strength conditioning workout to do three times a week, and suggested I do an hour of cardio twice a week in addition to that. This is a lot more exercise than I had been doing prior.
For most of the week I have felt exhausted and very sore all over, to the point that I basically treated myself as if I were sick, my husband cooked and waited on me, etc. But the soreness from the initial workout did go away, and I have done the conditioning two more times since then without any additional pain.
I was feeling great on Saturday, so I opted to take a cardio class called BodyCombat, which is basically kickboxing. It is the most intense class they offer and I honestly have never worked out that hard in my life. It was one of those paradigm-changing moments where you realize you are capable of far more than you imagined. It was a lot of fun though and I felt great afterward. I want to do this class twice a week.
However, the next morning I got up and I could barely walk. I have severe pain in my calves. (This is because the cardio workout requires constant bouncing around on the balls of your feet.) The pain is even worse today; standing and walking 10 feet feels like hell. I have had to delay the conditioning workout because I’m just too sore.
My original thought is that this is just initial soreness and it will go away as I do the workout more. My husband, however, is convinced that this is an abnormally high level of soreness and my body is telling me to wait until I am in better shape before doing the kickboxing workout again. He thinks it will be easier in a couple of months after I have built up better fitness.
It seems to me that I would have to go through this period of soreness whether I start now or in two months - and waiting is just delaying the inevitable. Backing down would make me feel like a wimp and reneging on my commitment to my trainer. That said, I feel like crap so he may be onto something.
So who’s right? Am I pushing myself too hard? Should I grit my teeth and get through the first grueling weeks, or should I back off on the intensity?
IMHO there’s no reason to start off that hard and fast. Three lifting sessions a week is fantastic for someone who’s never done it before. Two cardio-only days in which you do an activity that keeps your heart rate in the optimal range for 30 minutes should be plenty.
Kickboxing is total-body. You’re over-doing it. You’re also not going to be able to sustain this balls-to-the-wall pace for very long. Go with the minimal and work your way up.
Health is a lifestyle, not a race to the finish. Don’t set yourself up for failure!
You are over-doing it but that level of soreness is normal for what you did and your newness to working out.
Schwarzenegger told a story about his very first workout with weights as a teenager. He fell off his bicycle several times riding home and the next morning he couldn’t lift his arms to comb his hair.
There have been times when I overdid it in my first time back to the gym, where the next day (or, more frequently, the day after that) I couldn’t even bend over because my body was so sore.
So when this happens now (which is often, since I often lapse in gym attendance), I tend to baby myself in the first one or two visits. Just use light weights and don’t do a “burnout” set at the end like I normally would.
In your case, it just sounds like you’re using muscles that don’t get much use at all. I would advise that you do some more general cardio work and muscle training before you do really intensive stuff like kickboxing. Get your initial soreness out of the way first, then go for it.
I exercise regularly in a variety of ways and have a good fitness base. I have included a fair amount of jump roping as part of my mix in the past but had not included it for a while … a week or so ago the weather was nice and I was home with my daughter and her friend on a playdate. My wife was out so I couldn’t go for a run and leave them and wanted to stay in the yard with them while they played outside, so I did a half hour of jump rope intervals while watching them … longer than I usually go jumping rope and while I’ve been biking, running, using the rowing machine, doing weights, etc., I haven’t done any jump roping in a while.
Yes, I woke up the next morning with very sore calves and was sore, especially walking down stairs, for 4 to 5 days later. “Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness” (DOMS).
Calves just don’t get used like that in many exercises and a full out prolonged session, be it jump rope or kickboxing, is going to hurt the first time, or the first time in months, even with a solid overall fitness base.
They’ll feel better in a few days and next time the same activity at the level won’t be as likely to make you as sore. Yes, it could have been avoided by easing into the bouncing on the balls of your feet work a bit more gradually (maybe not their most intense class right off?) and over-reaching has you having to back down for a few days (or at least cross train with something that does not strain your calves, maybe swim if it is available, or bike, outside or stationary, biking was no problem for me the next day even though walking hurt) but it does not mean your overall plan of attack is far off.
Certainly don’t give up on something that you found fun and psychologically paradigm shifting!
You could be working too hard/fast. You could also not be recovering properly/normally. I have had a lot of issues with muscle soreness in the past; drinking large amount of water post-workout, making sure I get a lot of potassium and magnesium in my diet, and ratcheting up my protein intake has all but eliminated it, even if I have an entire day full of strenuous/unusual activity.
Muscle soreness without injuries is not a big deal. Painful and annoying of course! But it will heal, and you will be fitter for it. Be careful not to push yourself to the point of injury of course, but otherwise I say continue with what you’re doing IF you are enjoying it. If you’re feeling ill and exhausted by the pace, that’s no good IMO.
If you push yourself too hard, you’re going to hurt yourself, and that will prevent you from making any progress. For now, your job is to get in the habit of going to the gym and doing a reasonable workout. Once you’ve got that down, then you can worry about about exactly how hard you’re working.
My suggestion would be to see if you can continue but back off on how intensely you do it until fitness improves. Otherwise do something a bit less strenuous for a while, where you’re more in control of the intensity level.
As we get older injury risk goes up, and also if it hurts every time for a while, you can end up training your brain to see exercise as work rather than an enjoyable activity and then lose interest as a result.
While muscle can improve fairly quickly, tendons and ligaments can take a lot longer, and you can end up having problems with these months down the track, particularly with higher impact activities like skipping or running, and when weight is an issue.
I will be driving my friend to surgery Wednesday. He tore a rotator cuff by working out too strenuously and he’s been working out for years. I know of a number of middle aged men who needed hernia surgery caused by “core exercises” or in one case too strenuously working a rowing machine. When you don’t have time to recover fully between workouts, injury is much more likely. Under 30, I say go for it. Over 30, I say give it a rest.
Definitely take it easy at first–almost comically easy. Right now your muscles are not built for high-level exertion. You need to build them up slowly.
Primarily, your muscles have not yet built all the infrastructure necessary to take in enough fuel and remove the waste products efficiently. You can still push your muscles really hard, but they will use an inferior form of energy that produces lactic acid. This is what typically makes you feel sore over the next couple of days. You may even feel so sore that you can hardly move. Drink lots of water and keep moving to flush everything out. In a few days it will get better.
But you’re at risk for actually injuring your body if you push to hard. Your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and cartilage are not yet ready for the pounding. If you push them too hard, they may actually tear which causes a lot of pain and takes a long time to heal.
Have you ever worked with dough like for a pie or pizza? You start out with a soft ball and gently ease it out to a round shape. If you grab the dough and yank it out it will tear. But by slowly easing the dough out it will gradually get the shape you want without any tears.
Thats how you need to think of your body. You need to gradually get it into the shape you want. Your initial workouts should be at a level where you barely feel any discomfort afterwards. Workout a little harder each time. Eventually you’ll get to a level where you can do that class without any soreness at all.
BodyCombat is a great class, but maybe not for a beginner. Do they have BodyPump? It’s a class which uses weights. As a beginner, you can use really light weights to make the workout appropriate for your level. Later you can add weights to make it more challenging. There’s no jumping so there’s less risk of injury. It might be a better class for you to start with.
I agree with this. Also, with something like kick boxing, if you are hitting a bag or a pad, or doing roundhouse-type kicks, it’s not just overtraining, you can really hurt yourself with poor technique. It’s easy to get caught up in the adrenalin and go balls to the wall. Not so easy to miss 6 weeks of strength training because you torqued your shoulder or your knee from using bad form.
While I do not think there is anything unusual in all over aches from a full body workout, there is no merit badge for hurting yourself. Step back from the ego thrill and ask yourself what you’re doing here. How can you be letting down your trainer if he never instructed you to take the hardest cardio class offered? Get the job done, slow and steady; with time rain dripping on a rock makes the Grand Canyon.
The general consensus seems to be you’re starting out too hard, & I agree with that.
You need to drop it down a bit but remember to not add more that 5-10% a week, whether that’s weight you’re lifting or distance you’re walking/running, cycling, etc. Ignoring this ‘rule’ is a sure way to get overuse injuries like muscle/ligament tears or stress fractures.
I had to smile at this. I once had to back down from some exercises and told my trainer I felt I was letting her down. She laughed and said anyone who comes back after two weeks is not letting her down! So many people start and quit, just coming back and doing the exercises in between sessions was a win for her!
Her calves are sore. Understandably given the kind of work out she did and almost anyone who has not done that specific sort of work out would also be sore if they did not ease into it. Yes working harder than she ever did before in her life, on top of a baseline intro fitness routine, was overdoing it, but DOMS of her calves is not a sign of an impending shoulder injury and she loved it:
To those who think she should stay out of this class and do things comically easy:
Really? You think she should stop doing the fitness activity that really got her going, that gets her realizing what her body is capable of, that she is thrilled about, and should instead approach fitness like rain dripping on rocks to make the Grand Canyon?
Maybe not go for the most intense class right off, take some easy days in between, but fitness that is fun is much easier to keep with, even if you are sore a bit the next day every so often. Let the girl play!
In my opinion, people who begin working out and immediately go balls-to-the-wall with maximum intensity, are committing one of the big errors that cause many newly-working out individuals to say “fuck this shit” and stop working out altogether. I’ve seen it myriad times in my years in the gym; people go way too intense way too quickly and their untrained bodies suffer from the very painful effects of muscle breakdown and overtraining. These people always seem to vanish from the gym, never to be seen again.
Do as much as you can while feeling good. Bottom line. Being sore is to be expected. Staying sore is not. If you are staying sore more than a couple days after your workouts, I’d back off a tad. And if you are noticing things like decreased appetite, decreased strength, poor sleep and fat gain in addition to the soreness, you most certainly are suffering from overtraining and need to reevaluate your training program.
Raises hand sheepishly. Pilates in my case. Didn’t need surgery but scared the living crap out of myself.
Take it easy, Olives. And have no shame in telling your trainer. Unless he/she is R. Lee Ermey, they’ll understand. The good news is that it gets less achey very fast. I just started running again two weeks ago after a month off (I could feel the depression starting to return and nibble at my heels). I was hobbling like an old man for three days afterwards.
After another couple of weeks you’ll feel the ache merely as a pleasant background glow to remind you you’re getting fit.
Hell no I don’t think she should stop! But you can’t take a body that hasn’t done any exercise and start doing an hour of maximum intensity kick boxing. That’s a recipe for injury, and an injury could completely derail any fitness goals.
You have to face the reality of muscle, tissue and bone. If you push it too far too soon, you will cause an injury.
It’s my belief that a beginner should not feel much discomfort after working out. They do not yet understand the capability of their body well enough to push the limits. If a beginner is working so hard they are sore, they are pushing hard enough to cause an injury. If they are working out under the close guidance of a trainer (like on The Biggest Loser), then it’s safer to work out at their maximum limit. He’ll say when to push and when to stop. But if they’re just working out on their own, it needs to be at a much lower level to avoid injury. They don’t yet know how far they can push and when to stop.
You can continue with BodyCombat, just do it at a slower, less intense level. Limit how much jumping or running in place you do at first to avoid shin splints. Ideally you would want to have no or little soreness the next day. Gradually increase the intensity from class to class. You’ll soon start to clue in on how much you can push yourself without risking injury. Pretty soon you’ll be able to do the whole class at your maximum level and feel no soreness at all.
If a beginner is not at least fairly sore a day or so after a workout, I’d say they are wasting their time in the gym (or wherever they are exercising). For an untrained body, it doesn’t take much to induce post-workout muscle soreness. I mean, your body isn’t used to being assaulted (literally) by way of physical exercise so any new activity at all, if done correctly and with any intensity, will bring about some muscle soreness as the body scrambles to adapt to this new stimuli.