Should You Be Sore After Every Workout?

Some people measure the effectiveness of their workout by how sore they are next day after training. However, the nopain-no-gain principle should not always be your fitness motto.

This soreness (also called Delayed
Onset Muscle Soreness, or DOMS) is caused by small tears in muscles. This
happens when you train muscles that were previously less used or work out at a greater intensity than usually. Muscles
grow while they are recuperating. This is why rest and recovery are all-important
for muscle build-up.

Muscle soreness can be avoided if you warm up before exercising and stretch and cool down the muscles after your
workout.

If you feel soreness after each workout,
it means that your muscles do not have enough time to heal and you run a risk of overtraining and injury. Muscle soreness can actually hold your advance back if it hurts too much to work out. Consider speaking with your doctor if the pain continues days after a workout.

If you are no longer sore after your
training, it doesn’t mean that your workout is not effective anymore. The routine you stick to helps you maintain your achievements. Just make sure you vary your workout in order to avoid a
plateau.

Instead of measuring the effectiveness of your workout by how sore you are,
Think about the following:

• are you lifting proper weight?

• are you working all your muscle
groups during the week?

• are you diversifying your workout
from time to time?

If the answer is ‘yes’ to all these
questions, you are a getting a good
workout.

Metabolic Misconception

Some people blame their excessive weight on slow metabolism. However, metabolism is a natural process which is
balanced by your body according to its needs. It does not happen often that overweight is caused by medical conditions that slow down metabolism.

Weight gain mostly comes from eating more calories than you burn. While your
body’s basic energy needs depend on metabolism, it’s your diet and activities
that ultimately determine your weight
because these are two things that you
have control over and can adjust. Two more factors that determine how many calories you burn each day – basal metabolic rate and food processing stay relatively steady.

Basal metabolic rate (BMR) is the amount of energy your body needs to normally function. BMR is influenced by
your age, sex, body size and muscle-fat ratio. Big people or people with a large muscle mass tend to burn more calories, both exercising and at rest.
Women usually have more fat than men of the same age, which explains why
they bum fewer calories.

Also, the amount of fat increases with age and slows down calorie burning.
The energy used to digest, absorb,
transport and store food does not vary significantly.

The solution to the weight problem would be to zero in on the factors you can influence, such as your calorie
intake and expenditure through physical activities.

To lose weight, create an energy deficit
by burning more calories than you consume. Do regular aerobic exercise to
burn calories and fat, start strength
training to build muscle, change your
lifestyle to be as active as possible and reduce the number of calories in your
diet. These things can help you manage
your weight and even improve your metabolism.

Ways to Stick to Your Workout

So, you’ve gathered enough motivation to start exercising. Now it’s time to think how you’re going to keep your fitness routine going.

What causes people to stop working out? One of the most common reasons is burnout. Newbies are likely to jump in like mad and then get exhausted or even injured in a couple of weeks that a mere thought about exercise hurts. So the first and one of the most important rules of a successful fitness routine is not to push too hard but be consistent. Build up workout load gradually, have enough time to rest and restore strength.

If you’re looking to burn fat, think about this little fact: your body is always burning or storing fat. And it’s logical that one of these processes is always faster than the other. It’s entirely in your hands to control the burn/store ratio with a regular fitness routine so that you can achieve your goal.

Schedule your workouts for a month ahead. Mark completed and missed workouts with different colors, e.g. green and red respectively. At the end of the month you’ll see how successful
you were in following the schedule. If green prevails, you’ll have a sense of accomplishment, which in itself is a motivation booster. If there’s more red, you’ll want to look closer at the reasons that prevented you from hitting the gym and sweating it out.

Brag about your successes along the way to your friends on social networks: let them know that you did bench presses, squats and pull-ups or lost 5 Ibs over 1 month. Not only does it make you feel good about what you’re doing, but also sets sort of a bar you’ll be willing to gradually raise.

How to Lose Weight the Right Way!

Losing weight is as simple as burning more calories than you consume. “So the more I work out and the less I eat, means the faster I’ll lose weight, right?”

That logic pervades the minds of the fitness-oriented public all over the world, tainting diets and ruining the effectiveness of workouts.

People hear the phrase “don’t starve yourself,” and assume that if they’re not anorexic, then they’re on the right track. But over -exercising and under-eating will make you skinny…and fat.

Imagine you lose your job: Would you immediately go out and spend all of your money, or would you pinch your pennies until you had a regular income again?

This is exactly how your body functions: When there is not enough fuel for energy, it takes all of the food consumed and saves it up, only spending its ‘income’ on the bare necessities.

But if you’re working out hard for 6 days a week, where does that energy come from? When you over-train, your body bums your muscle for energy, resulting in regression and a weaker, flabbier you.

So how many calories should you consume daily to avoid this depressing frustration?

A reliable, basic formula to calculate your daily calorie burn is this: Multiply your body weight in pounds by 14 (assuming you have a sedentary job, exercise 3-5 times weekly, and your body fat is between 20-25%) and aim for that goal.

If you wish to lose weight, subtract a percentage (between 15-35%) of that figure and then keep your calorie intake in that range. But remember, the more you workout, the more you should eat!

‘But I Don’t Like To Run…’

Maybe you have bad joints, maybe you get bored, or maybe you just can’t run very far. The fact of the matter is this: if you don’t like an exercise, you probably won’t do it.

Considering that cardio exercise is absolutely essential to maintaining any kind of fitness, then you need to learn to love running or find something else. So here are some exercises that will grant you a beautiful cardio workout without running:

Cycling. You go fast, you see the world (or the TV screen), and you get cardio. It’s a wonderful exercise that’s easy on the joints and will get you moving.

Swimming. If you haven’t heard, swimming has almost zero impact on your joints. Push yourself and you’ll have an incredible workout and a Baywatch body. Did I mention you don’t have to worry about sweat stains?

Rollerblading. It’s like running really, really fast… but with wheels and half the strain on your joints. An hour of moderate rollerblading will bum almost 400 calories: That’s not bad, and it’s a good deal of fun.

Circuit training. Combines machines, free weight exercises, and resistance bands with very little breaks in between. Move immediately from one exercise to
the other and you strengthen your heart while building a powerhouse physique.

So if you don’t like to run, don’t let it get you down: There are plenty of other exercises that will give you the cardio you need. Find the exercise that you enjoy the most and you’ll get the most out of it!