Week 1 Questions!

gregr072

Hello Everyone, I decided to give the Basic Program a try. So far I've completed Days 1 & 2 (upper body and legs). I did Day 1 on Saturday and I am still very sore 3 days later. I'm just curious if others experienced the extra soreness initially. I was planning on doing Day 3 (2nd upper body workout) tomorrow, but I may delay that a day or two if I'm still as sore as I am. I did Day 2 (lower body workout) yesterday. My legs are not nearly as sore as my upper body. So I was debating doing the next legs workout tomorrow and putting the upper body workout off until later in the week, or just waiting for both until the soreness is gone. So what would you all do? Also do you have any recovery techniques, or will recovery time just improve with the more I do these workouts? Thanks!

caligulala

The ladders make you really sore! I don't usually wait until the soreness has totally subsided, but if I'm really feeling it, I'll take an extra day. Stretching the muscles and doing light movement while you're sore will help it to dissipate. For us, the first week of the program was definitely the worst. Good luck and power through!

krokador

Yep, same here, although I have to say the first leg day made me walk and sit down funny for almost a week the first time around! Then again, I really pushed it on the squats if I recall well... Anyways, just go with how you feel. If you think you can't take it, take an extra day. I've inverted days a number of times, nothing wrong with it.

As for the soreness, I typically take some extra BCAAs (I have some Xtend I hate the taste of, but I think it's the glutamine in it that helps a ton) when doing ladders because it builds up lactic acid quite a bit, but short of that, warming up before (jumping jacks, jog in place, throw some not-too-intense punches and kicks at nothing) and stretching well and using a foam roller afterwards helps. When I take/have time to do it.

Today is my last leg ladder of the first class program. I really should get to it!

gregr072

Thanks guys. I was feeling pretty good this morning so I went ahead with Week 1 Day 3 of the basic program. It was a challenge but I felt a lot better than I did on Day 1 which was really encouraging. We'll see how I feel tonight and tomorrow.

gregr072

I finished Week 1 today, It was cool to see progress just between the workouts within the week. I'm going to rest tomorrow and start Week 2 on Sunday.

lithezebra

I'll do my lower body while my upper body is sore, but I wait for all my soreness to subside before doing the same area again. My recovery technique is to keep moving: take walks, putter around the house, dance. Sitting makes things worse.