Soreness and getting back in the saddle!

CorvusCorax77

I have been on MFP for five years now. Made some great life changes, lost a bunch of weight- too much even- , started strength training, gained some weight (some muscle some fat).... At any rate about a year ago I made a big change on advancing my career and that meant more stress at work which meant my self care started to look more like rest and less like exercise. Needless to say I gained a little more weight. I'm still in the healthy range but what this is really about is fitness:

I went from lifting 4x's a week to 1-2 x's a week, running 2-3 times a week to doing the elliptical 1-2 x's a week. For the past month I have been working on trying to get back to exercising at least four times a week but what happens is I get sooooo sore that I feel like I need to let my body recover before I hit it again. What is happening is my soreness lasts a few days, I hit it, I'm sore again for a few days and allofasudden I realize I'm still only working out 2 x's a week.

Anybody know any solutions for this beyond "just do it" (which i already know! Lol!). I mean is there any sort of dietary/nutrtional element to soreness? Do I just take more hot baths?

ILiftHeavyAcrylics

More water, more protein, epsom salt soaks, and then just do it. Usually I find that working out helps the soreness tremendously so I go ahead unless it's so bad that I can't complete the movements properly.

eta: you didn't have this problem before? It's recent?

CorvusCorax77

I don't remember it feeling so debilitating before. I know I have been Sore but you know when the legs are sore from leg day, I'd do arms. I wonder if it's just aging or just lack of practice. It's also possible I need to not push so hard when I work out- I'm still lifting and running the same weights and distances I did when I was slaying it.

fivethreeone

What ILiftHeavyAcrylics said, as well as focusing on an appropriate warm up and cool down. Many times soreness can be caused by not recovering the muscles properly. I like to spend a few minutes doing some dynamic stretches in the sauna before and after a workout and it keeps me from feeling sore even after a particularly rough workout.

That said, you're new to it again at this point, so there's some element of soreness you're just going to have to work through, as you said. On the bright side, it should go away as you acclimate. One other suggestion is to slightly lower the intensity of your workout and increase the frequency. Instead of going 100% twice a week, do 75%, three times a week. That might help you acclimate faster.

BusyRaeNOTBusty

Lifting once a week is HORRIBLE for soreness. It will get better if you can "just do it" 3 times a week. And yeah, nothing wrong with taking it easy the first few weeks back.

HardyGirl4Ever

Yoga can help too!

ILiftHeavyAcrylics

CorvusCorax77 wrote: »

I don't remember it feeling so debilitating before. I know I have been Sore but you know when the legs are sore from leg day, I'd do arms. I wonder if it's just aging or just lack of practice. It's also possible I need to not push so hard when I work out- I'm still lifting and running the same weights and distances I did when I was slaying it.

That's highly possible. I think trying fivethreeone's suggestion could be good-- 75% more often instead of 100% less often.

EvgeniZyntx

ILiftHeavyAcrylics wrote: »

CorvusCorax77 wrote: »

I don't remember it feeling so debilitating before. I know I have been Sore but you know when the legs are sore from leg day, I'd do arms. I wonder if it's just aging or just lack of practice. It's also possible I need to not push so hard when I work out- I'm still lifting and running the same weights and distances I did when I was slaying it.

That's highly possible. I think trying fivethreeone's suggestion could be good-- 75% more often instead of 100% less often.

Yep, agree with this.

If you ramp up slowly over 3-4 weeks with lower volume/weight you'll likely feel less sore and achieve better compliance. It's too easy to fall for the "gotta take 3 days off I'm too sore" trap.