what to do when your sore

uh.. no, your friend is wrong. You SHOULD be sore after your workout. If you feel no soreness at all, your form probably sucks. Soreness is a natural part of strength training. Now, if you feel sharp pain anywhere, that's not good- stop what you're doing and see a doctor.

I work out in a 2 day rotation- triceps, biceps and back one day, then quads, calves and abs the next. SO each of my muscles gets a day off to heal in between workouts. I am told, however, that small muscle groups (like abs and calves) only need about 24 hours of rest between workouts so theoretically you could work those everyday.

When I started strength training I was very sore, everyday, for about a week. But I didn't stop. when you stop you lose progress. Don't stop unless, like I said, you have sharp or severe pain- could be a torn muscle or something.

ps- after a week or 2 the soreness won't be so bad. you're still feel it right after a workout, but not the next morning like you do at first. Seriously, I was shocked when I stopped feeling it, but it's good, because it makes getting up and working out the next day a LOT easier.

I find that if I do some type of walking (treadmill or outside) followed by some light stretching, it usually helps. Plus, make sure you don't work the same body parts two days in a row.

Make sure you incorporate a warm up and cool down period into your exercise and stretch once your warm and before you cool down. Otherwise you have a much higher risk of injuring yourself even if your in good shape. As far as being sore, its just a natural process in your body, when you lift your body will produce lactic acid and you'll be sore, I've found that going on a moderate walk or a short run later in the day will greatly reduce the fatigue and soreness. A creatine supplement would help too, though unless your planning on building alot of muscle I wouldnt recommend it. Always consult your physician before starting any supplement of that sort too.

Hope that helps, best of luck

I believe it's ok to workout muscles that are not sore to the touch. If you feel pain when applying pressing to the muscle, it's better to rest it or very lightly work it out (like walking or light cardio).

If the muscle is not sore to the touch, it is probably just stiff. After a good warmup and some stretching it should feel better and you can work it out just fine

Soreness is a natural part of working out. BUT, this is why I say full body weight training isn't really a great idea, soreness from cardio should go away in a day or so, if it doesn't you pushed yourself pretty hard, and might want to give it a few days.

So with weight training I usually tell people, you SHOULD be sore for 2 days after, which is why you really only need to work any particular muscle group once or at most twice a week, with a minimum of 3 days rest between.

There are certain types of exercise and muscle groups that don't conform to this rule though. For instance, isometric exercise and body weight resistance, should be able to be performed every day on small muscle groups like your core, and every other day on large muscle groups like your triceps and quads. this includes things like unweighted lunges, push ups and pull ups.

Cardio should be able to be performed every day for moderate levels and every other day for really strenuous levels.

If you mix all these types up you should be able to do 5 to 6 days of workouts every week.

take this example week for a good reference.

monday - upper body weight training - heavy weights to failure
monday - core work, 5 minutes or 3 types of core building activity.

tuesday - hard cardio (45 minutes to 1 hour HIIT training at 80% average of Max Heart Rate)

Wednesday - Lower body weight training - heavy weight to failure
Wednesday - core work, 5 minutes or 3 types of core building activity (different from monday)

thursday - medium cardio and isometrics

Friday - Hard cardio (tabada training) plus some core work, various

Saturday, Upper body medium weight training - lower weight higher reps

Sunday REST day

Repeat the next week, swapping out the upper heavy weight day with the lower heavy weight day.

you should be able to continue with this schedule for a loooooong time without problems and without your body becomming "used" to the activities. Remember to vary the types of training you do, to keep your muscles guessing. Muscle memory is your enemy when working out.

-Banks