So for all of you fitness instructors out there, let me ax you this:
I have been going to the gym recently (again). Trying to lift two days a week and walk/jog 3-4 days a week.
Weights generally consist of 75% upper body, but I have been doing squats (safety squat bar) and hex bar deadlifts, too.
Problem is–I’m wondering if I’m not letting my legs recover. They ache almost daily. I assumed that lifting and walking/jogging would work different muscle groups, so by walking, I’m essentially resting my legs.
Legs can ache for up to a week if you start a new routine. You will recover more quickly after a few times. It also helps to take a protein shake after workout.
My legs are wrecked right now, haha. Some light exercise to get the blood flowing through the muscles is good for alleviating soreness, as the blood carries nutrients to the muscles that let them repair more rapidly. This will get better as you continue to exercise. There is very little chance you are over training. Rather, you are just currently untrained whatsoever.
I have found that now that I am an older, I tend to be more sore. Stretching after a workout helps and some supplementation with protein and/or creatine immediately following a workout may help too.
yep no need rest for aches. you can always jog through it! the only time you need to stop is plantar fascitis. u usually get it if ur fat and ur body not used to your weight putting too much pressure.
The ache is a by product of something whose name I forgot building up inside your legs that is closely correlated to levels of lactic acid in your body . Different people have different thresholds for that thing( Lance Armstrong comes to mind ) (its not lactic acid contrary to popular misbelief ) and some others have a better capacity to turn those stuff into glucose in their kidneys thus never reaching their thresholds ( Phelps is a good example ) so the “soreness “ is never a good yardstick for measuring your recovery. Most people can/should recover in less than 72 hours unless suffering from some medical condition.
Try to get deep sleep , take magnesium (the form is very important, don’t get some cheap costco $hit ) and just do what you got to do.
I generally don’t squat or deadlift more than 2X per week, and if I go heavy, I have no reservations about giving my legs 7-8-9 days of rest before hitting them heavy again. When I say go heavy, i’m talking 3 or 4 rep sets. If I’m just doing my 135-185lb working sets then sure, 2-3 days rest is fine, but the days when I can’t walk up the stairs after my workout because my legs won’t stop shaking require a full week off before hitting them again. I even switch my cardio up for the day immediately after a heavy leg workout because I’m a giant baby sometimes and I’m old and broken.
OP is talking about delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). You are talking about something different (which sounds more like endurance/fatigue during exercise than DOMS), unless you can link some research.
The physiological cause of DOMS is not well understood, but is thought to be related to microtrauma (damage) of the muscles.
Then I’d just work through the soreness. Stretch, hydrate and stick with your routine. It gets better. I’m not trying out for the Cowboys either, but about twice a month I really like to burn out my legs and since they’re used to hauling my 300 pounds around, it takes a heavy workout to truly make me feel it in the legs.
Greenie, the way you describe the complaint sounds odd to me. You say yoy feel " achy". That implies that there is a persistent discomfort even when you at rest. Is that what you mean? If so, I don’t think this is a question of recovery or workload. When I feel discomfort from a hard workout it is specifically soreness in the muscle when I use it in day to day activities or I feel generally more fatigue than usual going up stairs. Stuff like that. “Achyness” for me is usually due to mild injury or a physiological structure issue.
That being said, if I am reading too much into the word “achy”, I don’t see anything wrong with your program. Seems appropriate and something you can build on even.
It doesn’t ache when I’m sitting at my computer staring at AF. It’s just that when I go to the gym, about 1/2 mile into my walk my legs start to hurt to the point where I have to slow down.
I figured that it was just a bad case of laziness induced obesity, but thought I’d ask some experts.
Are you referring to pain in your shins (i.e shin splints)? I used to have these randomly as well couple of minutes after I start walking. If so, these are usually caused by wearing bad/old shoes that don’t provide good support, or not stretching properly before a workout…
The stranges thing about all this–it really hurts when I walk. When I jog, my legs don’t hurt at all.
“So why walk? Why not just jog?”, you ask? Well, it’s because I’m out of shape and the lungs and heart can’t jog all that long before I’m back to walking.