Getting fit, muscles sore...

MooShop

im 21 and fairly unfit, im not fat or anything.when i was younger i was really fit (as we all are) but as i got older i started doing less and found beer!!! the last two years i have been very inactive, partly because of laziness and partly because of an ankle injury, not really doing any activities apart from a game of football every now and then.

so now i have decided to start playing football again and the season starts in about four weeks. i have been training with the club for the last three weeks. this week we started training with a fitness instructor. we had training wednesday night and was mainly based on muscle building and balancing exercises which i found very strenuous. My muscles are still aching today from it, i have training tonight and im not sure whether to train or not. could i do myself more harm than good by training with tired/sore muscles. i do however need to get fit as soon as possible.

all opinions and advice would be greatly appreciated

rubadub

I would give it a miss myself. When I started weight training muscles were sore for a few days after. Now after a year they never are sore unless I try a new exercise working a "new" muscles. I did really deep squats a month ago and was sore for 3 days after. Now I do them and have no problems. Also when I started it was only the first few times that they were sore, very quickly they were fine, maybe felt it for 12-24hrs after but just felt it, not sore.

What is your diet like? protein will help repair muscle, as will creatine. If you dont want to take supplements then eat lean red meat, full of protein and some creatine too, lean chicken is a great source of protein too, & milk.

I_and_I

Well if you are in serious pain you really shouldn't train, but at the same time your body is probably just in shock so if you do go training just stay within your limits and do what you feel comfortable with. If you haven't been doing anything for a long time its not the best idea to start anything too intense until you get used to the exercises .

hunnymonster

Actually that's a question I've thought about as well. I'm quite new to the weights end of the gym and I have a residual stiffness, often with delayed onset for about 2 days after new things. I generally wait until it's not noticable before I do the same exercise again. I've often wondered if this is the correct approach. As it's not my top priority, I never got around to looking it up.

I_and_I

Ideally you should give whatever muscle hurts time to heal (couple days), usually though you shouldn't exactly feel pain unless you attack a high weight in an exercise you havn't done in a while. Your routine should leave enough resting time.