I joined a gym to take some cardio and resistance training classes hoping to get the first 40lbs off sooner than later.

I do the cardio mon/wed/fri and resistance on tues/thurs. I'm only 2 days into my first week and I feel like my body is as stiff as a board and so sore. I don't want to quit but it really hurts.

How long until it's a good hurt vs. feeling like my arms and legs are going to collapse? Thank you.

Your routine looks good because you are getting rest days between the cardio and resistance training by doing the other. You are also getting the weekend off. So let's get that out of the door early on before someone talks about rest days or overtraining.

The truth is you will always be sore (if you are doing it right) but it gets more tolerable. However pain is different to sore. You need to find, or will discover, the difference. Don't exercise if you are in pain. Your body will say no anyway and you probably won't be able to. But a little sore is normal. I do cardio and resistance training every day (two different sessions) with few rest days. And I am sore all the time. But if I get pain, I rest for a day. I know pain when I cannot physically do what I would like to do and can normally do.

So keep with it but watch for pain.

By the way, cardio will help you lose weight (both fat and muscle). Resistance training could go either way as this helps build muscle which makes you look great but may not mean a loss on the scale.

You also need to be eating right if you are working out a lot. I eat a lot of protein to fuel my muscle retention/growth and to help recovery. But you also need to balance what you eat while maintaining a calorie deficit if your main goal is weightloss.

So prioritize the diet as well or the 40lbs won't happen.

My approach was to lose the weight (both fat and unfortunately muscle) using mostly diet and then to build/tone up the muscle with exercise and (a different) diet.

Agree with the above post, your program looks good. The delayed onset muscle soreness is good, for a start it shows your muscles are working and actually firing. If one set of muscles say flutes never get sore then work on them a bit as that probably indicates they have gone to sleep and not working as they should.

In a few weeks the DOMS won't be so bad overall but will feature after a particularly hard session.

Keep it up and don't think you can out exercise a bad diet, I am living proof you can't!

I agree with the previous posters. If you don't feel slight soreness after a workout, particularly resistance training, then you aren't working hard enough. However, soreness and aches are very different to genuine pain. If you can't move a part of your body or can't do an exercise due to it hurting too much then you should rest. It's hard to explain what the difference is, I suppose it's actually different for everyone, but I tell the difference by whether I can smoothly perform the movement in question. If I find my self jolting or twitching out due to a sensation I class that as pain and stop.

An example would be when I first started the insanity workout. For the first couple of weeks I woke up every morning with legs so stiff I could barely walk. However, by the end of it I could move around fine but still had DOMS. All I can say is stay focused and keep going. You're plan sounds good and you have done so well to get this far . Don't let a little bit of discomfort put you off!

If you're not opposed to a little pharmaceutical help, Ibuprofen can help. It works for me. And soaking in a hot tub or bath can provide temporary relief.

When I do a strenuous workout, the DOMS hits me one or two days after, persists for three days or so, and then I am sore to the touch for another three or four days after that. The soreness, however, to me is "good," because it tells me I did something good for myself.

But if you are sore to the point of having problems moving, respect your limits. And as the other posters said, we all have to learn the difference between DOMS and injury. In general terms, the pain associated with injury gets much worse with movement, and not so much with DOMS.

Some experts disagree, but most recommend that you do not work out again until your DOMS has passed. The healing phase is just as important as the workout itself!

Thank you all, I meant to come back to this thread. I get lost around here sometimes.

I'm happy to say I'm still doing all my classes and working out, walking between 20-25 miles a week above the weight training. I've only lost 11 pounds but I think (?) I'm toning up?

I have a winter coat that doesn't fit at the moment (I need to lose about 3 inches around my butt/hips) so I'm using that for measurement vs. weightloss. That's when I know I made it.

Will ibuprofen make me retain water? I thought I read that before. I know it's more important to take away the soreness but the scale messes with my head.

I think the worst pain I have now is feeling old with sore knees.

i agree with what the others have said....ibuprofen also helps but i don't use it often...i'm okay with being sore, but not sore to the point where i can't move around because my job depends on being able to keep up with kids...

i've had pain in my knees and ankles from running and i actually stopped running and switched to the adaptive motion trainer (similar to elliptical) because it doesn't pound my ankles like running does...i realized i had to switch because my right ankle was starting to HURT from a running session....not just hurt and get better, but continue to hurt for days and sometimes unable to support my weight, like it would just give out under me (weird!!)...so i switched to a lower impact workout and my ankle hasn't bothered me since

Luckily for you, DOMS (which is delayed onset muscle soreness) will go away the more you do those exercises:

After performing an unaccustomed eccentric exercise and exhibiting severe soreness, the muscle rapidly adapts to reduce further damage from the same exercise. This is called the "repeated-bout effect".

As a result of this effect, not only is the soreness reduced, but other indicators of muscle damage, such as swelling, reduced strength and reduced range of motion, are also more quickly recovered from. The effect is mostly, but not wholly, specific to the exercised muscle: experiments have shown that some of the protective effect is also conferred on other muscles.

The magnitude of the effect is subject to many variations, depending for instance on the time between bouts, the number and length of eccentric contractions and the exercise mode. It also varies between people and between indicators of muscle damage. Generally, though, the protective effect lasts for at least several weeks. It seems to gradually decrease as time between bouts increases, and is undetectable after about one year.

This might be a bit simple but rest is pretty important. From my understanding I believe in order to build muscle properly, a consistent 8 hours of sleep is important. Although I think it might depend on your body type. Anyone care to confirm?

-Daniela