Exercise advice please?!
Question: I bought Natalie Cassidy's work out DVD and it's absolutely fantastic but I did it on Monday and I am still aching quite a lot because I am so unfit! It's recommended that you do the DVD 3-5 times a week but should I still do it if my muscles are sore or should I wait until I've recovered? I was going to do it tonight but I don't want to cause myself any damage. Can anyone give me some advice? Thanks in advance!
Answers: I bought Natalie Cassidy's work out DVD and it's absolutely fantastic but I did it on Monday and I am still aching quite a lot because I am so unfit! It's recommended that you do the DVD 3-5 times a week but should I still do it if my muscles are sore or should I wait until I've recovered? I was going to do it tonight but I don't want to cause myself any damage. Can anyone give me some advice? Thanks in advance!
Did you get a really good stretch out at the end of your workout? One of the worss causes of sore achy muscles for days after you exercise is a build up of lactic acid in the muscles, which should have been drained if you were to stretch properly. If it's lactic acid build up, the best thing you can do is to exercise gently - rather than an aerobic workout go for a brisk walk or gentle jog (depending on how good you are at moving fast). Get the blood flowing, shake up your toxins and then have a really good stretch to release all of the lactic acid and you should start to feel better.
It sounds like you're achy rather than in any actual pain, so I'd imagine you haven't pulled anything. If you've pulled a muscle you should be really careful exercising on it until it's healed (about 10 days), but you'd be more than a bit sore if you'd done any damage.
If you think you're sore simply because your muscles aren't used to being used, I would say not to fling yourself straight back into aerobics again. Do something more like yoga (there are drop-in classes in most fitness centres to teach you the basics) or even just have a quick scout about online and find half a dozen nice, gentle yet toning stretches. Give your muscles a bit more time to recover before you leap back into the busy busy world of aerobics.
When the DVD says to do it 3-5 times a week, take it with a pinch of salt. If you do that, you'll get bored and plateau really quickly. Aim to exercise 3-5 times a week by all means, but do the DVD maybe once a week, and throw in a swim or a brisk walk, a yoga class or just climbing the stairs 10 times in a row. You'll find that you keep up with your new healthy lifestyle much longer and get much more out of it.
Good luck, and may you tone up quickly!
Did you make sure you warmed up and cooled down with stretches first? The cooling down ones are vital,you shouldnt ache if you have done them properly.I would do it again but take it easy...the more you do it the easier it will get.
do an exercise that focuses on the areas you want to work on. Every other day is better in the beginning. If your muscles are still sore, try an epsom salt bath. Get a DVD that someone recommends. Then be consistent.
Take a couple asprin with every meal for a couple days and do some simple warm ups befor you pop in th dvd.
View your muscles as if they were taffy. When they are cold it's not pleasant to stretch them. Warm them up and they'll be more apt to move smoothly.
As long as you are achy you are fine for a beginner. If you feel any sharp grabbing type pain, back off.
Even an unfit person should be able to exercise 3 times a week. You won't get in shape if you take a whole week off either. I'm not familiar with teh video, but if it's possible to tone down the work out a bit so that you're not hurting yourself, it might help you ease into the routine. Most work outs can be varied so if there's weights, keep them light at first and if there's jumping you can probably subsititue it for marching in place. Keep lots of water with you and if you have muscle aches us a hot water bottle on the sore spots for 10 minutes.
the muscles shouldn't hurt for more than 48 hours, so if you have to, take two days off then get back to it. After the second try you won't hurt any more so you can add more impact.
After starting a new program when you haven't exercised in a while, you will almost certainly be sore. You probably overdid it because you were so excited to start getting fit. THis happens a lot. With that said, you should still do some sort of exercise whether it be walking around the block or something low key like that. The soreness goes away but get back up on that horse!
Work at the pace that feels comfortable to you. It's alright to workout if you're a little sore, but it's also alright to work your way up to three or five sessions per week.
I suggest you take your time and do it twice per week until you feel that you can comfortably exercise 3 times per week. Don't be in a hurry to get fit, the last thing you want to do is injure yourself.
Stick with it and you'll see the results soon enough.
You should rest after muscle injury (which is what this is) it will only take a day or so to heal, you must really have gone at it if you are still sore 3 days on !
Don't forget muscles need to be warmed up by gentle stretching before exercise begins, & and warmed down afterwards.
I know you will probably not want to hear this, but really cold water, bath or shower following exercise helps to reduce bleeding from the micro tears within muscles that occur with exercise, it is really uncomfortabl & a shock to the old system but it does reduce pain later & means you can workout more, it does get better with time.
By the way aspirin as suggested earlier will actually compound the problem, it is an anti imflammatory but it's anti platelet effects will predispose you to more bleeding within the muscles.
Ive just joined the gym and can hardley walk, i was told light exercise should help, and it did, you have to start slow and build up!!!
you sould devinitly do it again tonight as you have left it long enough always start with the warm up and finish with the cool down, always leave it a day in between workouts for your muscles to recover and soon enough the workouts will be easy for you, but you have to persevere!!!!!!!!!!!
do as much as you can without pain..it's ok to feel the burn but pain is bad...you could try swimming to relax your muscles