Gym question for the more experienced

joseacolon

It depends on the kind of soreness. Is it just the lactic acid build up, or does it come from an injury?

- Musclles need time to recover one way or another.
- Lactic acid build up can be flushed by light activity of the same area (ie: Chest and arms hurt after doing bench pressess, next day, do some push ups)
- Do cycle your body parts (Do not work the same body parts every day).
- If needed, consult your physician.
- A massage, or warm shower does wonders for achy muscles.

cmsmj1

I personally don't see how 6 days a week in the gym is good...value? I'd want to be ripped if I was spending anything like 6+hours lifting weights.

I go 3 times a week and am following a stronglifts 5*5 progam +a few extras (dips and plank with some rowing machine chucked in). I have 30s between reps and am in and out i the hour...

I also run 5k at least twice a week - I cannot stand being indoors and whiling away the time trying to focus on one thing - All over strength and fitness has to be key IMO.

It is a personal thing but I can see time being wasted and so the value is in being efficient with your time. get in, do your stuff, get out.

MrsG31

Thanks for this topic OP! I asked something similar but it has already buried, but thanks to you I've got some great advice by default!

eyecandyrayce

I personally don't see how 6 days a week in the gym is good...value? I'd want to be ripped if I was spending anything like 6+hours lifting weights.

I go 3 times a week and am following a stronglifts 5*5 progam +a few extras (dips and plank with some rowing machine chucked in). I have 30s between reps and am in and out i the hour...

I also run 5k at least twice a week - I cannot stand being indoors and whiling away the time trying to focus on one thing - All over strength and fitness has to be key IMO.

It is a personal thing but I can see time being wasted and so the value is in being efficient with your time. get in, do your stuff, get out.

My fiancee works nights and I have nothing else to do but sit home alone and be bored, depressed, lonely and eat. So personally, this is not a waste of time for me.

Also, having just moved to Dallas from Seattle.. being outdoors here is depressing to me. There are no mountains, people trash the nature parks without a care and the summers are hot as hell.

ninerbuff

Normal. DOMS last a couple of days. Keep working.

A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

ninerbuff

I personally don't see how 6 days a week in the gym is good...value? I'd want to be ripped if I was spending anything like 6+hours lifting weights.

I go 3 times a week and am following a stronglifts 5*5 progam +a few extras (dips and plank with some rowing machine chucked in). I have 30s between reps and am in and out i the hour...

I also run 5k at least twice a week - I cannot stand being indoors and whiling away the time trying to focus on one thing - All over strength and fitness has to be key IMO.

It is a personal thing but I can see time being wasted and so the value is in being efficient with your time. get in, do your stuff, get out.

I train 6 times a week. I train one body part a day. I see value in it because I can concentrate on that one body part and have ample recovery time to train it again next week.
Exercise is for fitness and health. If someone wants to be ripped, then it's their diet that should be the concern.

A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

Huffdogg

A lot of this depends on the type of training you're doing. If you're only lifting every other day, you're fine. A lot of times if I have a particularly challenging workout, my DOMS is actually worse the second day than the first. No sweat.

eyecandyrayce

To clarify:

My focus is lean muscle and calorie burning. I am 195 pounds and I want to be 130 pounds with lean muscle.

Day 1 - Focus legs with cardio
Day 2 - Just cardio
Day 3 - Stomach and cardio
Day 4 - Just Cardio
Day 5 - Upper body with cardio
Day 6 - Just Cardio
Day 7 - Stay home and lay in bed going "owwie" while playing Skyrim, doing laundry and getting everything ready for another week.

Huffdogg

If that's your goal, you could easily cut out 75% of that cardio and just create your deficit via diet. I also personally would recommend doing full-body lifting days rather than just one day a week each of lower body, "stomach," and upper body. You're leaving a lot of valuable training on the table. If you're doing barbell compound lifts, you don't even really need to train abs directly much at all. Certainly not enough to merit devoting a full day's training to it.

eyecandyrayce

If that's your goal, you could easily cut out 75% of that cardio and just create your deficit via diet. I also personally would recommend doing full-body lifting days rather than just one day a week each of lower body, "stomach," and upper body. You're leaving a lot of valuable training on the table. If you're doing barbell compound lifts, you don't even really need to train abs directly much at all. Certainly not enough to merit devoting a full day's training to it.

Good points. I think I need to review my plan again now that I've learned more. This is going to be a constant evolving process I think.

One of the reasons I'm sore is because wednesday I did full body lifting but it seemed to hit my legs the hardest.

MrsG31

If that's your goal, you could easily cut out 75% of that cardio and just create your deficit via diet. I also personally would recommend doing full-body lifting days rather than just one day a week each of lower body, "stomach," and upper body. You're leaving a lot of valuable training on the table. If you're doing barbell compound lifts, you don't even really need to train abs directly much at all. Certainly not enough to merit devoting a full day's training to it.

Not trying to jack OP posts, but had a question - I am just starting back into working out and strength training after slacking for a good 5 months. Prior to that I was working out and doing strength training on my own at home using my body weight and 3lb hand weights. The trainer at the gym set me up to do full-body work outs twice a week to start out at since I wasn't sure how I often would actually be able to go to the gym. Does that sound about right? My husband like to do the alernating thing - arms&abs one day and then back&legs another day, but he is more used to it and works a phyically demanding job.

ElliottTN

6 days a week is fine as long as you do it smart and don't get burned out.

and

If it is a dull low kinda pain that stretches across your muscles, odds are you are fine, its DOMS.

If it is a sharp pain or one more around your joints and not the muscle area than that is something to be concerned about.

Edit: Don't worry about "stomach" exercises yet. That is going to be a waste of your time until you are much much further on.

keithemp

Not trying to jack OP posts, but had a question - I am just starting back into working out and strength training after slacking for a good 5 months. Prior to that I was working out and doing strength training on my own at home using my body weight and 3lb hand weights. The trainer at the gym set me up to do full-body work outs twice a week to start out at since I wasn't sure how I often would actually be able to go to the gym. Does that sound about right? My husband like to do the alernating thing - arms&abs one day and then back&legs another day, but he is more used to it and works a phyically demanding job.

If you have sufficient time between your two full body workouts (I'd suggest 2 days), then you'll be fine. Don't do two full body workouts on back to back days.

keithemp

Edit: Don't worry about "stomach" exercises yet. That is going to be a waste of your time until you are much much further on.

You should always be doing core exercises if you do weight training no matter what stage you are at. The core and shoulders stabilize everything else.

ElliottTN

Edit: Don't worry about "stomach" exercises yet. That is going to be a waste of your time until you are much much further on.

You should always be doing core exercises if you do weight training no matter what stage you are at. The core and shoulders stabilize everything else.

You and I both know that OP is not talking about doing squats or deadlifts. She is talking about doing crunches.

and

If that is what YOU are talking about then just stop talking.

JTick

To clarify:

My focus is lean muscle and calorie burning. I am 195 pounds and I want to be 130 pounds with lean muscle.

Day 1 - Focus legs with cardio
Day 2 - Just cardio
Day 3 - Stomach and cardio
Day 4 - Just Cardio
Day 5 - Upper body with cardio
Day 6 - Just Cardio
Day 7 - Stay home and lay in bed going "owwie" while playing Skyrim, doing laundry and getting everything ready for another week.

Do you have access to free weights? I think you'd be much better served by doing a full body routine 3 times a week, plugging cardio in between those days.

parkscs

I'd be more worried about you burning out than doing harm. Just understand that you don't need to hit the gym 6 days a week to see results. If you enjoy going to the gym, then it's fine, but it's far from necessary.

Understand that if your goal is to lose weight, your diet is by far the most important thing to keep in check. The resistance training you're doing is just there to help preserve your lean body mass while you're eating at a caloric deficit. As for cardio, this is probably the least important tool for your weight loss right now unless you really feel like you need the extra calories to eat enough food. That said, it's great for your health and I'm not trying to discourage it, but if you feel this is too much all at once, cutting back on the cardio is the first thing I'd suggest.

parkscs

You and I both know that OP is not talking about doing squats or deadlifts. She is talking about doing crunches.

and

If that is what YOU are talking about then just stop talking.

Not sure I entirely agree. If she's doing an entire workout of crunches/planks, then sure, that's unnecessary. But just 1-2 short sessions/week (think 5-15 minutes) of sit-ups, crunches, planks, toe touches, etc. can really do wonders for strengthening your core when you're first starting out and can really make a big difference in how you feel on a daily basis. I'm not talking about a misguided 250 lb person doing crunches to achieve 6 pack abs - I'm talking about just feeling better when you sit-up in bed, when you're working around the house, etc.

eyecandyrayce

Do you have access to free weights? I think you'd be much better served by doing a full body routine 3 times a week, plugging cardio in between those days.

I do. I think my body could only handle the full body routine 2 times a week to start. It was a full body routine on wednesday with free weights that killed my legs.

keithemp

You and I both know that OP is not talking about doing squats or deadlifts. She is talking about doing crunches.

and

If that is what YOU are talking about then just stop talking.

Core is beneficial for more than just your squats and deadlifts...

No where did the OP say "crunches", she said "stomach", YOU jumped to that conclusion.