What to Expect

What to Expect

            Many people who have never worked out or haven’t worked out in a long time don’t know what is about to be ahead of them.  This can be scary for some people because they are scared of what could happen to them, forcing some people to just not work out at all.  This became apparent to me when I just very recently took on the role of training one of my friends in weightlifting who hasn’t even been in a weight room for most of his life.  He will soon be going through what most of us experience in about the first three months of weightlifting. 

            So throughout the first three to four weeks of intense weightlifting, the person should feel quite a bit of soreness and fatigue, this in completely normal.  It shouldn’t be pain necessarily but sometimes the feeling could be described as stiff, sore, or maybe even aching.  Unless this becomes to the point of agony, you will be perfectly fine.  This is just a sign that your body and muscles aren’t use to this kind of functioning and intense training, soon they will be and you should find it harder and harder to feel soreness from your workouts.  That being said, when working out you should only work certain muscle groups once to twice a week, any more could strain and over train your muscles. 

            Another very common occurrence that happens to almost everyone I’ve known that works out, tends to happen a few weeks after your “beginner stage” is over.  This is what happens after your body is used to working out and no longer sore from exercise.  This is a sharp, almost unbearable pain in the sides of your forearms.  I have no idea why this happens to some and not others, but it just does.  When doing exercises like curls, you begin to feel a very discomforting pain in your forearms that makes it harder to do curls.  Don’t worry it should only last about two to three weeks, until then try to do less reps on curls and lighter weight.  The only thing that you can to lessen the intensity of this pain is just carry on with your normal routine, don’t let up on your exercising.  If you let up on or stop your exercising then the next time that you do exercise it will just be there again and be even more painful, because your body is not used to it anymore.

            When you make it through these short few weeks about the only other thing that you need to worry about is just basic injury and soreness from breaks.  All of these aspects aren’t hard and are just basic things that all beginning weightlifters go through.  Remember, we’re all in this together, keep your stick on the ice.