after several months of regular cardio and running I’m now starting to train my upper body, basically planks and working out with a dumbbell. I’m tall and skinny, so I never had much fat or muscle mass in my arms.
I’ve trained my arms for 3 days in a row, nothing fancy: upright rows, bent-over rows and triceps kickbacks, 10 repetitions each, 2 rounds.
After that I’m so sore I cannot do more, so I turn to cardio and do planks (front and side) and some yoga.
Today, fourth day, I’m not in the mood to tone up my arms because they burn, but should I keep exercising? Doesn’t the burn mean muscle is being built?
I also don’t know if I should work with my arms less than with my legs, should I do cardio and running 5 times a week and arm toning only 3? Would it be better to do both in the same session or to alternate (odd days cardio and running, even days arm toning and yoga)?
Being sore doesn’t mean that muscle is being built, that’s a misconception, it’s actually muscle being damaged.
Soreness is micro-lesions in your muscles, and what builds them stronger is actually the rest following a workout. Because that’s when the body goes around to repair these lesions and builds stronger bonds within the muscle.
What builds muscle is resistance, nutrition and rest, the latter two being the most important.
You can’t build muscle if you don’t feed them right and give them time to recover.
So, killing yourself at the gym 3/4 days in a row, focusing on the same muscle group is actually really counterproductive.
Rotate your training focus with a split like push/pull/legs/core, or upper body/lower body/cardio, or whatever, as long as you enjoy it.Give yourself time, eat right (as right as you can, don’t fall into the rice/chicken at every meal madness, balance is key), sleep a lot, take some rest days and deload weeks once in a while, and drink plenty of water.
And most importantly, be kind with yourself, it’s a marathon, not a sprint, you might struggle going to the gym some days, but showing up and doing less is better than not doing it at all.
Good advice.
Also, work on your form and not to increase weights. So many are doing some weird sort of back swing exercise when doing curls for, example
I didn’t even start talking about that, but yeah, at least to me, form is paramount over weight/complexity. At least until you have a strong enough foundation. Then you can take some liberty to strengthen in unusual moves.
Mobility and range of motion are also something to work on, it makes many things easier to do in your daily life.
But that’s something for another long post I guess !
Awesome advice
AFAIK you should alternate your training. Muscles need rest. The actual buildup of muscles happens when they rest, not during training. So a day break would be advisable if you are not a body builder or otherwise professionally.
Give the sore muscles a break until they’re not really sore anymore, it will save you future joint pain. A specific amount of time isn’t what is best, it’s the amount of time it takes to recover, however long that takes.
Don’t push past form failure either, once you can’t do the movement properly its time to go down to smaller weight or move on.
I’ve trained my arms for 3 days in a row, nothing fancy: upright rows, bent-over rows and triceps kickbacks, 10 repetitions each, 2 rounds. After that I’m so sore I cannot do more, so I turn to cardio and do planks (front and side) and some yoga.
Really recommend finding a workout split. I do push, pull, legs x2 and an hour on the stationary bike on Sundays. Monday is push, so my chest, tris, and shoulders are all hit. Then they’re rested the next two days when I get back to push. You could do also do a bro split or just find something that works best for you. The important part is that you’re giving your muscles time to rest between sessions.
On that note, the most effective way to gain muscle is to be in a calorie surplus, train to failure, and progressive overload (and steroids). So make sure you’re gaining weight (slowly, don’t just start bingeing cake). Push your sets to the point where you can no longer keep form. Try to lift more than you did last time (either more reps or more weight).
Don’t skip legs. I don’t mean cardio, do some actual resistance work on your legs or prepare to find yourself top heavy. “Skipping leg day” is a meme for a reason.
OP sounds a little new to all of this, so they might need some elaboration on your terms. Most of the terms are pretty obvious once they are explained, but without clarification, they might be unclear.
I’m going to take a stab at it, but someone please correct me if I get something wrong.
Push/pull are referencing the movement of the exercise. For example, push exercises are ones where the muscle is being used to push the weight, so push-ups/press-ups are a push exercise because you are pushing. Pull exercises, conversely, are like rows, where your muscles are pulling the weight.
As far as I’m aware, bro splits are just focusing on a single muscle group each day/workout session. E.g. Monday: chest, Tuesday: back, Wednesday: legs, etc.
Calorie surplus is, of course, eating more calories than your body uses in a day. You can be at a caloric deficit, caloric maintenance, or caloric surplus, depending on whether you want to lose, maintain, or gain weight. Your body needs more ingredients if it’s going to build more muscle. There are some formulas to give you an idea of your caloric maintenance, but they’re just guidelines. That number is going to vary from person to person, and can change for you over time as you progress.
Training to failure is doing an exercise (with good form!) until you can’t anymore. If you can do a lot of them, you probably need to increase the weight/resistance. One very important thing when training to failure is to keep good form, otherwise you increase the risk of injury. If you can’t do it with good form, that is the point of failure, even if you could do more.
Progressive overload is just gradually increasing the weight, resistance, or reps as you progress. It should be a planned progression, not just deciding in the moment that you could do one more. For example, the first week you might do 3 sets of 10 reps at 100kgs. The next week, you could do 1 set of 11 followed by two sets of 10 at the same weight. Then 2 sets of 11 and 1 set of 10 reps. Eventually, you could drop back to 10 reps, but increase the weight.
Go swimming… Much better overall and pair wonders with running!
… Then pickup cycling and start triathlon…
As other have mentioned, you need to rest and make sure you eat proper nutrition. Protein helps repair/grow muscle along with sleeping. Your muscle needs rest days.
Look up some gymnastics arm workouts, if you want to switch up some moves. Doing bicep curls while keeping your arm straight is a good arm workout. You don’t need much weight for it either so it’s easier on joints.
Look to the way bodybuilders train; do only 1-2 days each week, max, per general body part. I would suggest something like doing back and biceps on one day, chest and triceps on another. (Back exercises usually involve pulling, and that uses the biceps, so you would start with large compound movements–like bent over barbell rows–and progress to more isolating movements, like preacher curls.)
The general concept of ‘toning’ is a serious misnomer; you need to either add muscle mass or cut fat; both of those will make the muscles more prominent. You can’t realistically do both at the same time without significant chemical enhancement, and I’d recommend against that.
As far as cardio goes, I think that 5-6 days/week of cardio is fine, depending on your intensity. LISS cardio can def. be done daily, but you should have at least a day between any HIIT sessions to allow your body time to recover. If your running is all at a conversational pace (you can talk fairly easily; I’ve never been able to achieve that, even when I was bicycling 30 miles/day), then daily is great. If your heart rate is >75% of your maximum, then every other day. You might want to add in other forms of cardio as well, like rowing, which is going to also involve upper body.
Soemthign else to consider is getting a personal trainer. If you do that, look for one that has a certificagtion from the American College of Sports Medicine or National Strength and Conditioning Association, in addition to at least a BS in a degree like exercise science of kinesiology. Most PT certifications are absolute bullshit, and in the US, none of them other than ACSM or NSCA are worth a damn. If you choose to hire a personal trainer, be very, very specific in your goals, and make sure you get programming for all the days you aren’t working with them. Most PTs will try to sell you as many sessions as possible, which is great for them, and not so great for your wallet, so set your expectations accordingly.
Ensure you have lots of bioavailable protein from a clean source
Exercise a muscle group to the point where you feel the pump after, rest that group until you don’t feel the soreness anymore.
Repeat.
Avoid sugars, keep your insulin levels low (I know body builders when they do bulking ignore this), and you will build lots of lovely muscle.
If those are the only arm workouts you’re doing, you’re really just working your triceps. Need some pulling motions for the bi’s.
