Another Rest Day?

Hi all!

I was last at the gym on Saturday for about an hour and a half. I did about 35 minutes running on the treadmill, about half an hour on various strength machines and about half an hour lifting weights and doing squats with weights.

Basically, I've only just started doing the squats with weights and my legs are absolutely killing me still, two days later, even though I had a rest day yesterday. It hurts to walk and sit down and I know that this is a good thing (no pain no gain, right?) but will going to the gym today just make it worse or would it be best to work through it?

Many thanks in advance :flowerforyou:

First of all while soreness isn't necessarily BAD, the phrase "no pain no gain" is basically useless and untrue. And I know you're just making an expression but I figured I'd still post this because unfortunately some people believe that soreness is a necessity.

Next, the degree of soreness you experience will likely go down substantially as you get better trained. So in other words 4 weeks from now provided you stick to your training program you won't likely experience the magnitude or duration of soreness that you do now.

Training more frequently in some contexts, can also reduce soreness.

Finally and most importantly, it's usually fine to train through some soreness but it's NOT a good idea to train through soreness on technically demanding lifts with a high injury potential specifically IF that soreness impairs your ability to use proper technique.

Yeah, the first few times you do squats or lunges, it kills for days. Definitely better to take another rest day, or do something VERY low key (leisurely walk or bike ride, etc).