Training While Sore - Please Advise!

artizzztik · Sat, August 29th, 2009, 01:14 PM

Hi everybody,

I've now entered year two of lifting! Hooray! I've totally changed programs to shake things up, and I'm now pulling from a book called, "Built for Show," which seems to have some nice workouts.

Here's the thing:

I'd really like to lift Monday, Wednesday and Friday - 3x/wk. In this phase it's an upper body day alternating with a lower body day. When there are two upper body days everything seems fine, but whenever the week has two lower body days I seem to get beaten up a bit. This has always been the case. Leg work is intense and makes me quite sore. (not crazy sore, but sore.) My arms seem indestructible even though I lift the hell out of them.

It's common wisdom that your body must be forced to adapt to workload, but that there's a limit to how much this can be pushed. I'd really like to adapt to a 3x/wk routine, but this means I'll sometimes have to lift while sore.

Question: do you do it? Is it risky? How do you know when you're not so sore you really can't do it. I'm 31, not 21, and I don't want to hurt myself by overdoing it. Can this kind of thing be overcome, or is soreness just one of those things?

Thanks so much!

euan · Sat, August 29th, 2009, 01:47 PM

Is that Nate Green's book? Any good?

Your post makes it sound like you've not recently trained 3x a week. How long have you been doing this plan for? It may just be taking you a while to adapt.

As for your question; what's "sore"?

I lift when sore, but only if the soreness doesn't affect my technique. With a thorough warmup it's usually not a problem for me.

JoeSchmo · Sat, August 29th, 2009, 05:46 PM

Mild soreness = OK to train.

Significant soreness = you need more time to recover before hitting that muscle group again IMO. Growth occurs outside the gym when resting, so it doesn't make sense to me to train when you've got significant soreness.

Also, you may find that you can't necessarily do some routines. Just because they work for others, doesn't mean that they will work for you. Personally, there is no way I could squat twice per week ... unless one of those days was a really light day. It would totally put me out of commission.

artizzztik · Sun, August 30th, 2009, 03:29 PM

Thanks guys!

The book is pretty good. Yeah, it's Nate Green. The program seems very sound and well put together. There's a lot of filler that deals with, believe it or not, how to dress and why exercising helps you to get laid when not at the gym.

Um... yeah. I dunno - I wasn't really looking for advice in that department, but the workouts themselves seem to be really good and target a number of troublesome things for me.

As for soreness - yeah, I've found over the past year that I seem to only be able to reliably lift twice per week without getting too sore to even deal. It's possible that might just be my makeup. I've been trying to shove more food in to see if that speeds up my recovery somehow - you know, more fuel for repairs and stuff. Remains to be seen how it goes.

ignition · Tue, September 1st, 2009, 10:50 PM

Not sure if it works for everyone like this or not, but using Cytomax has cut my DOMS by 90% on equally if not more intense workouts. I started using it when cycling since Cytomax is huge in the cycling community, but it really helps my push my lifting sessions and majorly cuts the soreness for me.

Good luck.

tensdanny · Wed, September 2nd, 2009, 01:24 AM

Best way to get rid of soreness is to lift. Especially for leg doms. One heavy, deep squat set and my legs are at 110%. No, I'm not joking. It gets the blood flowing better than a massage and gives an excellent stretch.

Azure · Thu, September 3rd, 2009, 11:10 PM

When I'm sore I especially want to lift.

Getting the blood flowing helps get rid of sore muscles.

swartzycolman · Sun, September 6th, 2009, 01:16 PM

If i am sore i will strech those muscles and then warm them up with less weight.
If really sore i will skip a week. A two week window will allow muscle to build up without loosing endurance or strenght,any longer than that and you will start losing it.

tensdanny · Sun, September 6th, 2009, 06:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azure

When I'm sore I especially want to lift.

Getting the blood flowing helps get rid of sore muscles.

Agree 100%. Nothing gets rid of doms like lifting with those muscles. It's a weird thing to process, but sure enough it works.