How Soon to Workout After Soreness?

[InvisibleMan]

Guys,

I searched through the archives (and many websites) for an answer to this but can't get a consensus:

If you are still sore from a previous workout it is OK to work out again with those muscles?

I usually do 9 sets of 3 different exercises for chest, back, shoulders, triceps, and biceps followed by 30 minutes of intense cardio on one day (entire workout usually takes about 2 to 2.5 hours), then the next day I do legs in a similar fashion (quads, glutes, calfs, hams, abs) again followed by the cardio.

Then I take a day off. The problem is sometimes I'm still sore a little from the chest day (usually either triceps, shoulders and/or pecs are a little sore) by the time day 4 (the next upper body day) rolls around. And my butt gets really sore from squats and leg presses (sometimes lasting up to a week).

So I actually give the muscles 2 days rest (day 1 - chest, day 2- legs/abs, day 3 - off), but my upper body is still sore by day 3. I've read that you should actually give your muscles a day of complete NO soreness before working out again, but this means I only would only work out about twice a week.

Not exercising certain body parts (like doing only biceps if your back is sore, or triceps if your chest is sore) seems silly because when you do bench presses, you're working your triceps too and lat pull downs and rows also use the biceps. Most exercises like this use secondary muscles. So that's why I do ALL upper body in one day and ALL lower body in one day.

I use DiCreatine and Protein supplements (about 100 extra grams a day) and sleep well. I actually really enjoy working out very hard and I like to do it every day so I get ancy when I'm not working out. Yea, I'm a freak, I LOVE working out!

So, if you work out when your muscles are still a little sore even after waiting for 2 days, is it counterproductive? Should you wait until your muscles are COMPLETELY healed to work those muscles again?


- Invisible Man

 

[Warboss Alex]

Guys,

...

don't work out while you're sore. work out when the soreness is completely gone.. you risk hurting yourself otherwise.




*edit: no need to quote the whole original post

 

[donjuanjovi]

I would wait until it's atleast almost completely gone.
There are things that can be done to reduce this recovery time though ie. Cold and hot showers, increased protein intake, lots of rest, and some light cardio like walking or a bike ride on your days off to help blood circulation.

You said you do 9 sets but how many reps?

 

[InvisibleMan]

I would wait until it's atleast almost completely gone.
There are things that can be done to reduce this recovery time though ie. Cold and hot showers, increased protein intake, lots of rest, and some light cardio like walking or a bike ride on your days off to help blood circulation.

You said you do 9 sets but how many reps?

I do the 1 gram of protein for every pound of body weight rule, so I try for 175 grams of protein a day, I get 8 hours of sleep usually and I do fairly intense cardio for 30 minutes a day.

I try to do 10 reps for the first set of every exercise (to about failure) then decrease to about 8-9 and 6-7 for the last set. I've just been working out in a REAL gym for 2 months now, but for a year I'd been using a Soloflex and wasn't getting sore at all anymore from that. It's amazing the difference free weights and machine equipment can bring to your workout! But after 2 months I'm still getting pretty sore - especially the butt after squats and leg presses.

There are so much differing opinions out there that I don't know what to believe. Some guys say if you are sore at all you are overtraining, some guys say you gotta work through the soreness, some say you have to wait until completely healed....

I LOVE working out so I don't like waiting until soreness goes away. But I don't want to negate any gains I may make either.


- Invisible Man

 

[Warboss Alex]

I do the 1 gram of protein for every pound of body weight rule, so I try for 175 grams of protein a day, I get 8 hours of sleep usually and I do fairly intense cardio for 30 minutes a day.

I try to do 10 reps for the first set of every exercise (to about failure) then decrease to about 8-9 and 6-7 for the last set. I've just been working out in a REAL gym for 2 months now, but for a year I'd been using a Soloflex and wasn't getting sore at all anymore from that. It's amazing the difference free weights and machine equipment can bring to your workout! But after 2 months I'm still getting pretty sore - especially the butt after squats and leg presses.

There are so much differing opinions out there that I don't know what to believe. Some guys say if you are sore at all you are overtraining, some guys say you gotta work through the soreness, some say you have to wait until completely healed....

I LOVE working out so I don't like waiting until soreness goes away. But I don't want to negate any gains I may make either.


- Invisible Man

your way of training is not condusive to solid gains anyway.. your enthusiasm would be better channelled into looking up a solid routine, and eating! lol.

by the way.. soreness doesn't mean you gained anything.

 

[InvisibleMan]

your way of training is not condusive to solid gains anyway.. your enthusiasm would be better channelled into looking up a solid routine, and eating! lol.

by the way.. soreness doesn't mean you gained anything.

Why is my routine not conducive to solid gain? Why is that routine not solid?


- IM

 

[Warboss Alex]

Why is my routine not conducive to solid gain? Why is that routine not solid?


- IM

too much volume

if you like getting a pump stick with it

 

[donjuanjovi]

Way too much volume. Tone it down a notch because you're probably overtraining. Is your goal strength or hypertrophy?

 

[diablo]

http://www.sosuave.net/forum/search.php?searchid=240945

 

[InvisibleMan]

http://www.sosuave.net/forum/search.php?searchid=240945

Ya, I did this search before I posted this question, but nowhere has anyone had a consensus on whether it's ok to work out with SOME soreness or not. I should have known better than to ask a question on this forum anymore, cause all you ever get are "dude you're doing this wrong." "No dude you're doing that wrong." "No, this is wrong but this is right."

Or, "No your workout sucks." Or, "You suck, dude" Or "Just give it up and commit suicide, dude." I mean gimme a fricking break!

- IM

 

[Skilla_Staz]

Okay hold on. You ask questions but you don't want people to tell you you're doing something wrong? You don't want people telling you better ways of doing things? You don't want people criticizing you? THEN DON'T ASK QUESTIONS!!!

Nobody is getting on your case about it, they're just saying that there are better ways of training than what you're doing. Listen to these guys and stop being such a f*cking baby.

Generally speaking, a three day split is the best way to go about things, but if you're hell bent on doing upper/lower body workouts every four days, then you SERIOUSLY need to start eating. Lower your sets, up your weight. Stretch when you're done. Get enough sleep. Every now and then you may feel a little soreness, but that means that you DEFINITELY need to do some warm ups, and possibly stretch. My hamstrings always feel tight after my deadlift days, and on squat days, they feel much better after a warmup set and some stretching.

 

[InvisibleMan]

Okay hold on. You ask questions but you don't want people to tell you you're doing something wrong? You don't want people telling you better ways of doing things? You don't want people criticizing you? THEN DON'T ASK QUESTIONS!!!

Nobody is getting on your case about it, they're just saying that there are better ways of training than what you're doing. Listen to these guys and stop being such a f*cking baby.

Generally speaking, a three day split is the best way to go about things, but if you're hell bent on doing upper/lower body workouts every four days, then you SERIOUSLY need to start eating. Lower your sets, up your weight. Stretch when you're done. Get enough sleep. Every now and then you may feel a little soreness, but that means that you DEFINITELY need to do some warm ups, and possibly stretch. My hamstrings always feel tight after my deadlift days, and on squat days, they feel much better after a warmup set and some stretching.

Not being a baby - just frustrated because people apparently don't know how to read.

Ok, so far I've only gotten 2 answers to my question. Skilla certainly has nothing to offer so I will ask it again:

IS IT OK TO WORK OUT WHILE STILL BEING A LITTLE SORE? THAT BEING THE SAME MUSCLE GROUPS THAT ARE SORE?

I don't need critiques on my workout, I only offered them because someone asked about my regimine. I KNOW whatever I am doing is right because I have lost 45 pounds in a year and have doubled my bench press in that amount of time. Which means I have probably lost MUCH more than 45 pounds in fat while gaining pounds in muscle. I want to get even more muscular so I started taking protein which is also supposed to cut down on muscular recovery time. I only eat enough to give me enough energy to get through the day with protein supps to build muscle. I'm not interested in strength training, deadlifts, powerlifts and all that. I want 5-7% body fat. I want the clean, cut, chiseled look and muscular hypertrophy. And I'm getting that so no need to tell me what to do differently. My question is:

IS IT OK TO WORK OUT WHILE STILL BEING A LITTLE SORE OR IS IT COUNTERPRODUCTIVE?


- Invisible Man

 

[Warboss Alex]

I'm not interested in strength training, deadlifts, powerlifts and all that. I want 5-7% body fat. I want the clean, cut, chiseled look and muscular hypertrophy. And I'm getting that so no need to tell me what to do differently. My question is:

IS IT OK TO WORK OUT WHILE STILL BEING A LITTLE SORE OR IS IT COUNTERPRODUCTIVE?


- Invisible Man

it is counterproductive (and dangerous).

 

[Skilla_Staz]

:sigh:

 

[Throttle]

you are being offered advice that will help you avoid being sore in the first place. the specific answer to your question is that working out a muscle while sore is counterproductive at best. a more helpful answer is that it sounds like you're overtraining on several different dimensions.

It is very possibly to lose lots of fat and get big strength gains on a half-arsed regimen (I speak in this case from very specific, personal experience). You are probably now reaching the limits of your regimen, and some knowledgeable posters have attempted to explain directions you could take things for self-improvement. Ignore their advice if you are comfortable being stuck near where you're at until you wake up and wish you'd taken their advice sooner. Or find you've given up on all this bull and have gained back all that juicy bodyfat.... mmmmmm......

 

[Skilla_Staz]

You make me smile.

Edit: I just realized how gay that sounded.

 

[Throttle]

lol... but the sentiment is genuine & just a gentle rephrase would help (ouch, that sounds awfully metrosexual, too), like:

"Boo-yah!"

or

"Preach it, brutha!"

or simply

"Word."

 

[A-Unit]

Re:

It's unique to the individual, but personally, if I worked out while sore, I wouldn't do anymore weight than I did last workout. So why lift again? Also, if you're not doing COMPOUND movements, you're not getting all you can out of your workouts. Therefore it would be obvious that you want to lift again. ISOLATION exercises you can normally recover from faster, and therefore want to lift quicker. With Compounds, if I do great squats or deads, I can't bench or dumbbell anything until I'm almost 100%.

Adding cardio, while bumping the protein, will aid recovery and growth. Cardio will decrease bodyfat added during the extra consumption of calories, and also, increase your overall stamina and endurance so that you can recover quicker, AND handle more weight. Not being somewhat conditioned hinders progress. It also shuttles out any toxins in the body by at least being active.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you want to EAT more calories, forcing yourself and creating small meals are some way to get in more calories. But also, we need to be more active. As we increase activity, initially, the body curbs the appetite to a given level. But beyond that, supralevels of activity will lead to GREATER food consumption, lower levels of bodyfat, and conditioning. People are in fact consuming low levels of calories, but are also FATTER than ever before. Alot of that is because of inactivity relative to what the body requires, and the other bit are carbs and sugars, and perhaps engineered foods that mess with your hormones and digestive abilities.

I'd compress your workout down to 2-3 workouts, and THEN judge for yourself whether you can or not. Each week you should increase in weights and/or reps. The purpose of the workout at a very top level view, is to increase your strength, and thereby create more muscle. If your purpose was explosive power, you would do speed workouts, such as you would find powerlifting, and lift more frequently.

You Grow through RECOVERY, not by lifting more. The MORE frequent sessions of recovery you can jam in, the bigger you'll grow in a shorter amount of time. However, your recovery cycles have to tighten up for this to happen. Lifting squats everyday while you're burnt out with ever dminishing levels of weight won't create growth. As IA and DC note, the lifting workout sets you back so much that your body needs several days to get back to normal and then grow beyond what you previously Were. Hence why big weights are advocated on compound lifts -- efficiency, power, strength, size (deadlifting 300lbs or more does more for your biceps than curling 40lbs, as does pulling up or dipping your weight for several reps and sets).

My 2 cents.


A-Unit

 

[Throttle]

If you're so juiced to do good things for yourself that you can't stand staying out of the gym, try focusing on lifting 2 or 3 days a week and doing other things that are beneficial for you on other days--cardio, as A-Unit suggests, or stretching, meditation, yoga... addiction to self-improvement isn't necessarily a bad thing, but to reiterate one of A-Unit's key points, you grow when resting, not when working out.

 

[Skilla_Staz]

lol... but the sentiment is genuine & just a gentle rephrase would help (ouch, that sounds awfully metrosexual, too), like:

"Boo-yah!"

or

"Preach it, brutha!"

or simply

"Word."

:rockon:
Fa shoooo