Hi all,

I've tried to do a bit of internet research this morning, but there is tons of misinformation on the web, and everyone with advice also has something they want you to buy. So, this leaves me with no where to turn but my 3FC experts!

Here is my question: I worked my legs on Monday. I've just upped the intensity of my leg workouts and my legs are still absolutely killing me today (Wednesday). I'm hobbling around like an old crone. My plan is to alternate days, with a one day rest between working a particular muscle group. This means that I should be going to the gym today, doing my cardio and then working my legs. I am definitely going to do my cardio, but I'm not certain whether I should give my legs a longer rest before I try to work them again.

What do you guys suggest? If I have more-than-ordinary muscle pain/fatigue, should I push on and do my legs as planned, or should I give them another day off? What is the collective wisdom on this one?

Thanks!

I just got over something like that with my thigh muscles (core secrets, balance ball). My legs were so bad, they would shake and hurt when i was sitting down in a chair. I had to skip a few days of weight training on them. On the days i would have normally done my legs, i just did really intense stretching of my legs. They felt MUCH better the day after the stretching, almost like i could feel the tension or water leaving them. It just doesnt seem healthy for them to have these microscopic tears in them (isnt that what causes the soreness?) and then to go ahead and tear them more, with more weight training. Stretching just felt right/good for me.

I don't like working the same muscle group for at least 3-4 days. If you worked them hard 2 days ago, I wouldn't work them hard again today. Wait a day or 2.

Thanks guys. It might make more sense for me to think of my workouts on a three day rotation: Day 1, legs + cardio, Day 2, arms + cardio, Day 3, cardio only. I think my legs would be furious with me if I tried to work them today.

Are you doing anything for your back, chest, shoulders, or abs? If not, you could add in workouts for those muscle groups too.

I do my abs and lower back on my leg day, and I do my shoulders, chest and back along with my arms. More properly, I have a lower body day, and an upper body day.

The only trouble with this scheme, it seems to me, is that shoulders, back, chest and arms are very interrelated muscle groups. If I start with my pecs and end with biceps, I can't really finish all my bicep reps. The reverse is also true--if I start with biceps, by the time I have done triceps, the lat pulldown, the seated row and my shoulder things, I have almost nothing left to give my pecs. I have thought about separating these out into different days, but then my arms wouldn't really get a proper rest day... It's a pickle. Any suggestions?

Ah, I understand now.

I can't alternate upper-lower either because it's too much to work out all my upper body at once. Tell me how many days you want to lift in a week and I can suggest some splits.

PS - it's generally recommended that you start with your large muscle groups, like back and chest, and end with the small muscles, like bi's, tri's and shoulders. When you're lifting back, for example, you use your bi's secondarily. Same with chest and tri's. If you work those small muscles first, you'll be out of gas when you get to the large ones.

Thanks for offering to help, Meg!

I'm at the gym 5 days a week, and since I've cut down to 30 mins of cardio a day, I don't mind lifting each time I'm at the gym. My only thing is that I wait tables 2 nights a week, and I cannot work my legs on days that I'm going to waitress or I literally won't be able to do my job I have to work around that but otherwise I'm willing to do whatever, whenever.

As far as my upper body stuff goes, I'm still really a beginner, and I don't seem to be gaining strength and advancing the same way I am with my legs (although I am starting to be able to see my muscles). But basically what I've been doing are: 1. Biceps. I pretty much just do curls or hammers, depending on my mood. 2. Shoulders. I do these things where I hold my arms by my sides and then lift the weights to slightly above my shoulders so that I make a big T with my body. They are hard. 3. Triceps. I'm still working on finding a tricep exercise that I like and that doesn't make me feel like a fool. I mostly do tricep pulldowns with a pathetic 25lb of weight. 4. Pecs. I've been doing pec flys with the "function trainer" machine. I find these to be really hard. I'm still only doing 10lb on each side and have made no progress yet. I'm shaking like a fiend and have completely lost my form by the time I do the 10th rep of the 3rd set 5. Shoulders/back: Lat Pulldowns. 6. Seated Rows.

I only do these 6 things on upper body day. It seems inadequate, but I still can't finish whatever it is I do last (except Lat Pulldowns. These I can aways finish.

On leg day, I've started doing wall squats with a ball (which still leave my knee feeling really dodgy--I'm working slowly, slowly up to real, grown-up squats) along with seated hamstring curls (?), the leg press, calf things and then some crunches and unweighted lower back extensions (these kill me and I've never done more than 10).

So that's pretty much what I do. I've ordered that Body Sculpting Bible for Women and I'm hoping that will give me some new and improved ways of working different muscle groups.

How would you recommend dividing it all up?

As an aside, how can I be such a weakling???? Why have I not yet become strong and muscular??? I am a big, non-overweight person. Now that I've written everything out, I feel suddenly disappointed in myself.

Please forget the weakling stuff right now. Everyone starts out at their own place and progresses at their own rate. That's what I love about weightlifting - you're only competing against yourself.

OK, I lift five days a week like this:

Monday - back

Tuesday - chest

Wednesday - legs

Thursday - shoulders

Friday - arms (bi's and tri's)

I do abs a few times a week after cardio.

That's one possible five day split - there are lots of ways to divide it up. You could do my split in any order so long as shoulders and chest aren't on back-to-back days (they use too many of the same muscles). Even though you're only lifting each muscle group once a week, you're working it much more intensively and I think it might help you progress.

So let's say it's Monday and you want to work out your back. You're going to pick out 4 - 5 back exercises and do 3 - 4 sets of each exercise, for somewhere around 15 - 18 sets. That's sounds like how many your doing now but these would be all the same muscle group.

When I do back, I pick exercises that have me pulling down, pulling in, and pulling up. That's my little guide for selecting back exercises. Here's what I did this week: assisted pullups, seated cable rows, one arm DB rows, close grip BB rows, and DB pullovers. About three sets of each (I think I did four of the pullups).

Don't worry about the number on the dumbbell or the machine! Just pick a weight that's really challenging around 12 reps.

You definitely want to be learning new exercises! Repeating the same workout in the gym will keep you from progressing and you'll get very stale. Like with shoulders - you're exercising your middle delts with your side laterals, but not front or rear delts. So you'll want to try out some new shoulder exercises that hit all three heads of your delts.

The Bodysculpting Bibile will be a great resource. I also like Exrx.net and Fitsite.com because they break exercises down into muscle groups and type of equipment and have video demonstrations. Browse through their exercises and see what look like fun!

Hope this helps a bit!

Hi Meg,

I see what you're saying--many exercises in one day that work the same muscle group from different angles, rather than working one muscle once and then moving on to another.

I think that will be very doable once amazon gets me my book and I can see different ways to work different muscle groups. And I'll check out the websites, too.

Thanks!!

Be sure to come back and post about what you're doing. I always think it's interesting to hear about what works and what doesn't for people.

Just wanted to chime in and say I learn a lot from threads like this... thanks!

I'm also realizing that I am SLOWWWLLLY learning this stuff. I knew to exercise the big muscles, first, for instance!

I still feel like there's a lot to learn and will be doing some reading of my own this summer!

Coming here in the morning and reading a thread like this makes me want to run out of work and got the gym and start lifting! (Really, I'm the boss and I could technically do that, but somehow it's not setting the example I want for my staff, at least as far as work goes - workout wise it is.) Seriously, the timing on this is great! I need to change up my lifting routines. I've been doing on minimal lifting since I've been doing half marathon training, and that's pretty well in hand now, and I want to get back to more lifting again. Thanks.