Still sore after working out

That's your problem. Also, not stretching is counter-productive to gaining muscle. You spend an hour to an hour and a half and can't take three minutes to stretch? Think of the big picture.

Your diet may be hurting you a little, but the stretching will help immensely. Also, 'no one really does' is true. But most people aren't working out properly. It's why you see people in a gym for a year with no noticeable gain.

Stretch three minutes before the workout
Stretch during the workout (with your towel, swing your arms, do door hangs)
Stretch three minutes after the workout

Your reward will be more muscle gain and less soreness.

 

Question for someone more knowledgeable. Isn't it good that you are sore. Doesn't that mean your muscles are breaking down after workouts only to regrow stronger? Although if you are still sore after 2 months without drastically changing your workouts, it might mean something is wrong.

 

no its fine. The first few weeks you should have gotton REALLY sore, but now should just be sore to where you feel it and it makes you watch to stretch and eat.

Its called Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness.

It is a sign you are doing your work in the gym.Good job.

 

Extra stuff:

Your workout is probably fine. Sounds like you are working hard which is most of the battle.

You can add a high carb, low protein drink right after you lift, it will help a bit.

Your progress might be limited from lack of food intake. Up your calories for a few weeks and see if you don;t make a huge leap. People largely underestimate the amount of calories it takes to make progress.

 

If you've tried all of the other stuff in this thread and it's still sore to the point where it worries you, take a week or two off from working out altogether. It helps sometimes when you plateau.

 

You 'only' work out 1-1.5 hours? That's way too long. Unless you're just goofing in the gym, you should be done and out in 45 minutes or so.

 

lol I just took an Exercise Physiology final and had to explain the physiological basis for that....ugh.

But yeh, there's nothing you can really do, it'll take a while to get used to. However, don't increase your exercise load while it is still bothering you.

 

What he said.

 

does that include warm up and cool down Cardio?

Rocket River

 

Have you ever tried taking Glucoseamine Sulfate tablets?

I take one after playing ball and it helps a lot with soreness, tendonitis, etc

 

I've never understood the people that come to a gym half an hour after me and leave half an hour before me. My workout is usually close to 2 hours long. And it's not like I don't know what I'm doing, you can't argue with results.

Also I don't understand people who take 'protein shakes' or 'creatine' from the moment they start to work out. You don't need any of that stuff in the beginning. In fact, if you're not lazy, you won't need any of it for a long time.

 

it's called being an ectomorph (hard gainer..)

a 2 hour long workout is NOT effective.. unless, of course, the person is fairly overweight and is trimming down, then an hour of weights/hour of cardio seems reasonable, but for someone trying to put on weight, anything more than 90 minutes is a big no no.. and if someone is a hardgainer (see: Rocketsmac), anything more than 50 minutes is a big no no..

I learned that the hard way.. I've been hitting 90 minutes of overall body workout for 2 years, if anything, I would actually lose more weight.. I was stuck at 120 for about a year, and for a 5'7 guy, 120 is pretty horrible..

all of that until, this one day, I decided to do my research and I found this Rivera guy (trainer) who wrote an article suggesting techniques for hardgainers.. he suggested a superset program, with a simple 2 day split, with workouts not exceeding 50 minutes and very minimal cardio.. before I knew it, I put on 30 pounds, of the good stuff, not fat..

 

I know that there are a couple of trainers on this board so maybe I can get some help..

I have the exact opposite problem as the OP, I seem to have stopped feeling sore all together, no matter how I switch it up, nothing.. I work hard as heck, and I keep piling weights, and I focus on form, and I change it up for 3 sets of 8's to 8-6-4 pyramids, to 5x5 sometimes, but I just seem to have hit this plateau and I don't feel any soreness after workouts/the day after.. is that how it's supposed to be or do I need to change stuff even more, and if so, what are some techniques used to break this annoying plateau?

 

Same here. My workout is about 2 hours as well, 4 times a week. I spend the first twenty minutes doing high intensity cardio though.

If you do two muscle groups each day, and 3-4 different workouts for each muscle group it should at least take someone at minimum 1.5 hours to complete. That is assuming there is no wait time and you are doing 4 repetitions each. If I stop and talk to others, it adds even more time on top of my 2 hour workout.

I know people who actually spend three hours at the gym as well, but that's a whole lot in my opinion.

 

How often do you change your actual workout? Basically, you should be changing up your total workout after a while so your muscles don't memorize a particular training regimen. For example if you do bicep curls, you might want to switch up by doing pullups instead, etc..

Lookup "muscle confusion" on google. Some trainers believe in it and some don't, but I've seen good results this way.

 

Some interesting points there RocketsMac. I gave my thoughts on the issue assuming pigmanbear (aah! please, no!!!) is the same way as me which was wrong.

However, if anything, I have observed that longer workouts are for strength and mass, shorter for conditioning and durability, not the other way around, as you claim. Whenever I try to make my workouts more compact, I consume more energy, am tired and slowly lose/don't gain weight.

 

try some pre-exhaustion stuff.

 

They also sell supplements to help with the soreness

 

yeah but like the guy who quoted me talkins abouts DOMS said earlier, its kinda unavoidable.

The people who are talking about stretching have outdated information thinking that lactic acid is what causes it.