Okay, here's the story:

Last Thursday, I met with my trainer and had a workout session. We did 2 sets of 20 stability ball crunches, followed by some arm work and some squats. (all at 20 reps x 2 sets) I was supposed to do 3 sets, but I wasn't used to the squats, and all the blood rush to my legs caused me to get a bit dizzy so I stopped for the day.

The next day (Friday), I was a little bit sore (especially going down the stairs), but the soreness didn't really hit me until Saturday (at which point I was hunched over like a geriatric and unable to bend down to pick things up off the floor or go down the stairs without a lot of pain - not like 'injured' pain, but 'holy cow, that was a tough workout' kind of pain). Sunday the pain went down a lot, and by Monday, I was good to go again.

Anyway, yesterday (Monday), I went to the gym and I did my planned workout. It consisted for 3 sets of 6 different exercises.. Basically 3x what I did last Thursday.

Now, today I'm not really sore at all.. I don't know if it will all hit tomorrow and I'll be a train wreck, but I'm really not feeling much of anything. I was sure to use the heaviest weights I could manage comfortably (with them getting hard on the last few reps in each set). The only thing I did different (besides working out a lot more) was I had longer times between exercises (maybe 1-2 minutes vs. several seconds), as I had to navigate between areas of the gym.

Oh yeah, I also did a lot more 'warm-up' cardio. This time I started with brisk walking on the treadmill for 30 minutes before my weights routine and ended with about 45 more minutes on the treadmill, again at a brisk walk.

I have no doubt the trainer could have caused me to work harder, but it actually FELT harder this time. I didn't get dizzy with the squats this time either. (but I did get a wee bit of acid reflux with the crunches) Is it possible that the walking minimized the soreness, and that all that work on Monday kind of prepped me for the squats today?

Long story short, I'm feeling pretty bad that maybe I squandered all my time without any results (as evidenced by my lack of soreness).. However, my HRM showed a lot of calories burnt so it wasn't a complete waste.

Thoughts?

If you try a new move you will likely get sore again. You will not get as sore the 2nd time and even less the 3rd time. The cardio also helped flush things out.

With weights you have to keep upping the ante, since you just started doing the 3 sets was a good start! As you go you'll have to increase the reps or the weights to keep getting a good workout but even that may not make you sore. Or it might. It is pretty individual.

My trainer right now is cursing because he is trying to MAKE me sore and so far not succeeding. He may have done it today though, I'll know tomorrow.

Elle - you have a lot of questions and I love your enthusiasm but I am going to say one more thing. Relax. For now just focus on making exercise a habit and get a good routine going. Dont worry if you are working too hard or not hard enough. Just get the body moving. As you get more comfortable with exercise, you can fine tune.