Over-did it at the gym

joejoem

Hey, I went to the gym on Monday and a friend helped me work out a weights program, it all went well, did about two hours, stretched well before and after. But right now my arms and sholders are in bits. Is there anything (apart from deep heat) to help with the pain. Its pretty annoying, I can straighten my arm without pain, making work very hard. Also I want to go back tomorrow night to do the same and Im worried I will do damage if they arent better by then.
Cheers

that guy

Just take it easy for a few days. You just woke a lot of muscles up out of semi-retirement, that's all. Give them a chance to recuperate. The "pain" is just your muscles repairing themselves. I'll qualify that by saying you shouldn't actually be in any real pain. You'll be sore yeah, and that difficulty straightening your arm is probably because you were doing bicep curls and at the bottom of each rep you had your arms dead straight holding a bar or some dumbells yeah? - Next time always leave a slight bend in the elbows, and ditto for any other excercise - you should never lock out a joint. E.g. if you're doing squats, don't lock out our legs at the top of the movement, always leave a slight bend, that way your muscles are taking the strain and not your knee joints.

Also - be very careful about who you take gym advice from, particularly if it's a mate. He may not know as much as he thinks and give you erroneous and potentially dangerous advice. The kind of things I see people doing in gyms with weights is horrendous. Never be tempted to lift too heavy a weight, always keep your back straight. Buy some fitness magazines with beginners workouts in them and they will give you advice on proper form and body position.

Take the squat example - you should never squat lower than having your thighs parallel to the ground. It creates tremendous strain on the knees. The bicep curl is another infamously poorly performed excercise. People are too embarrassed to lift small weights so they pick up massive ones and then all they do is swing the weight up and down like a pendulum, using the momentum of the swinging weight and arching their backs to lift the weight - useless. Stand straight, keep your elbows in by your sides, very slight bend in the knees, head up, and curl the weight up and down - the only muscle that should move is the one being excercised - the bicep. Your upper arm should not move back/forward/up/down at all

Sorry if you know this stuff, it's just a bugbear of mine - you see gym personnell walking right by people doing the most outrageous home-made excercises. :eek:

joejoem

that guy wrote:

Just take it easy for a few days. You just woke a lot of muscles up out of semi-retirement, that's all. Give them a chance to recuperate. The "pain" is just your muscles repairing themselves. I'll qualify that by saying you shouldn't actually be in any real pain. You'll be sore yeah, and that difficulty straightening your arm is probably because you were doing bicep curls and at the bottom of each rep you had your arms dead straight holding a bar or some dumbells yeah? - Next time always leave a slight bend in the elbows, and ditto for any other excercise - you should never lock out a joint. E.g. if you're doing squats, don't lock out our legs at the top of the movement, always leave a slight bend, that way your muscles are taking the strain and not your knee joints.

Also - be very careful about who you take gym advice from, particularly if it's a mate. He may not know as much as he thinks and give you erroneous and potentially dangerous advice. The kind of things I see people doing in gyms with weights is horrendous. Never be tempted to lift too heavy a weight, always keep your back straight. Buy some fitness magazines with beginners workouts in them and they will give you advice on proper form and body position.

Take the squat example - you should never squat lower than having your thighs parallel to the ground. It creates tremendous strain on the knees. The bicep curl is another infamously poorly performed excercise. People are too embarrassed to lift small weights so they pick up massive ones and then all they do is swing the weight up and down like a pendulum, using the momentum of the swinging weight and arching their backs to lift the weight - useless. Stand straight, keep your elbows in by your sides, very slight bend in the knees, head up, and curl the weight up and down - the only muscle that should move is the one being excercised - the bicep. Your upper arm should not move back/forward/up/down at all

Sorry if you know this stuff, it's just a bugbear of mine - you see gym personnell walking right by people doing the most outrageous home-made excercises. :eek:

Cheers man, a great response. I think you hit the nail on the head there about keeping my elbows bent, I didnt do that. I think the pain is after waking up the muscles, I have never been to the gym before, im 24 but have an escellent physique, I have never had to do anything more than a few situps/pressups and a jog, but Im looking to bulk up a little.

I dont suppose you have heard anything about the powerball have you? I was thinking of buying one tonight to help build up my forearms etc. I figure its something I can use while sitting at my desk or watching telly.

themole

joejoem wrote:

Hey, I went to the gym on Monday and a friend helped me work out a weights program, it all went well, did about two hours, stretched well before and after. But right now my arms and sholders are in bits. Is there anything (apart from deep heat) to help with the pain. Its pretty annoying, I can straighten my arm without pain, making work very hard. Also I want to go back tomorrow night to do the same and Im worried I will do damage if they arent better by then.
Cheers

don't go again until the pain has gone away, let your muscles fully repair.

also 2 hours sounds kinda long for a weights program to me.

that guy

Is this powerball like tennis ball sized and you just squeeze it to develop grip and forearm strength?

-Here's a cheaper alternative. Open up an old full size newspaper and using one hand in the middle of the paper, scrunch up a page until it fits in the palm of your hand. -See how many pages you can do

Other exercises for hand/wrist/forearm would be -sit on a bench with your forearms on your thighs, palms face up with your wrists at your knees (so basically your hands are in the open space beyond your knee caps. Hold a barbell (with no weights on) with your finger tips and just curl it up and down for 3 sets of 15 or whatever. You'll hardly be able to grip the steering wheel on your way home

Another one which is supposed to be great for improving your arm wrestling is stand holding a dumbell, say your right arm - your arm is by your side with your palm facing rearward. Move your arm further back slightly so that one side of the dumbbell is resting on your ar$e. Now just flex your wrist to the left thereby moving the weight up and down. If this is confusing and you want to know what muscles you're supposed to be using, mimic an arm wrestle -in what direction do you move your wrist to overpower your opponent?

Easygainer

that guy wrote:

Take the squat example - you should never squat lower than having your thighs parallel to the ground. It creates tremendous strain on the knees.

I completely disagree, and have to say that this is a myth created by people who let their ego, not their legs squat. There's a fat guy at my gym who says the exact same thing just so he can be content doing quarter squats with 200kg when he couldn't do a "full depth" squat with 150kg.

I've competed internationally in powerlifting and I have yet to see a knee injury from squatting too deep, and that's with monsters like Dave Fitzhenry squatting over 300kg RAW. :eek:

The problem is caused when people bounce the bottom of the squat, which you can only do wearing a super suit.

I hate to go on, but for incomplete leg development, DON'T go full depth - for a set of wheels from hell and healthy knees, go ass to grass. You don't invlve the hamstrings or glutes by going parallel and by artificially stopping above the full squat position you create huge amounts of torque on the knee and allow only one muscle group, the quads, to bear the weight.

that guy

Fair enough if some pro dude mchenry can squat 300k. I'm pretty sure that if joejoem (original poster) tried that he'd injure himself, as would I. I know of guys who can swallow swords but I'm not going to give it a go. I am NOT an international powerlifter, in fact if I lifted half as many weights as I have fitness magazines maybe I'd be competitive but every article I've ever read without exception has stressed that going below parallel is the "wrong way" to perform a squat. Perhaps that should be translated as the "safer way" Maybe an accomplished bodybuilder who already has seriously strong legs and knees has the ability to perform a full squat, or maybe at that level the benefit of going through the full range of motion is worth the possible injury risk. But as I said before, the guy asking the question is not an international powerlifter, he's about to go to the gym for the second time ever, so maybe advice to him should be tailored appropriately.

pwd

Yeah I've had it on what should have been reliable sources that you should only go down to parallel, but googling does support the full-depth approach interestingly.