PulseCzar5000

I only did one set of the burpees, and in the last two sets I simply did jumping jacks. I've never done them before and just watched a few YouTube videos to get an idea of what to do. They were difficult for me to do mostly because my arms were tired from the push ups/overhead lifts/bent over rows and I'm pretty sure my technique was terrible. So I'll probably do squats instead until I've improved my strength some more, and then give burpees another go! Yeah, that's my general feeling. Burpees seem a little more advanced than what I feel comfortable with, and I'm positive I was doing them in terrible form. I'll make it a goal to improve myself well enough to "graduate" to burpees, as it were. That's a good question, I don't think I have an ultimate goal for my training besides losing weight and looking awesome! I'm definitely wanting to replace fat by building muscle, but don't have any grand aspirations for competitions or marathons or anything. =) I do have a goal of losing enough weight to be below 200lbs. I'm about a third of the way there, and I've gotten to this point strictly with cardio. I'm hoping the strength training, combined with interval cardio training, will be a more efficient means of getting through the other two thirds!

I went through and did the alternate routine as suggested by RAAVA yesterday, and I had a much better experience. I think focusing on time spent doing the exercise, rather than the reps, worked out much better for me. I felt challenged, got a good workout, but wasn't completely blown out by it. This routine definitely worked the upper body more, which I like. I'm considering adding squats back into the routine, as mgage advises, since I feel like my legs could have handled more. Thanks for the replies Elastigirl and NoMorePies, it's refreshing to know that I'm not the only one going through this! I went to a yoga class last night after my workout. I think the added stretching really helped minimize the DOMS as I'm sore today, but definitely not in terrible pain! Thanks again to everyone for their support and encouragement! Things are looking/feeling better already.

Thanks for the advice, RAAVA! I'll certainly give that routine a shot. It definitely seems to go a little easier on the legs while giving more attention to the upper body. You mentioned ending breaks "as the lactic acid decreases." Wasn't quite sure what that meant so I did a little Google search. By that, do you mean as the burning sensation in the muscle decreases? I'll try it out tomorrow at the gym and provide an update!

Hi there Commodore_Clement, thanks for the response! The workout I did I followed directly from http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2009/12/09/beginner-body-weight-workout-burn-fat-build-muscle/ Yeah, the plan was to do this 3 times a week, Mon-Wed-Fri just as you mentioned. I did this routine on Wednesday and my concern was that my quads hurt so much after this that I was simply unable to do ANY kind of exercise for now going on 4 days. I think my muscles are repaired enough that I can make it to the gym today (Sunday) for some cardio, but it just didn't seem right that it was taking so long to recover. I'm wondering if I should lower the reps, or do the routine fewer times a week, or is this just normal for getting started.

Hello everyone, just joined up with Nerd Fitness and I've been incredibly inspired by everything I've seen here! A bit of background: I'm 32 years old, 5'9" and have been around 285lbs for the past 8 or so years. At the end of this October I devised a self-motivating plan to lose weight and stuck with it. For 6 weeks in a row I was heading to the gym every single day and doing at least 1 hour of cardio with some assorted weight lifting machines and a small amount of free weights. As a natural side effect to regular exercise, I also improved my diet. I stopped eating gnarly fast food, reduced my portion sizes, ate more fresh and healthy foods, pretty much 75% paleo without realizing it. Over these past 6 weeks I've lost 25 pounds and I've been feeling great. Lately, I couldn't help but feeling like changing my routine and wanted to look into working out smarter, rather than longer. My normal routine was about 15 minutes on the elliptical and then doing a full hour on the treadmill doing about 50/50 brisk walking and jogging. I've been liking the straight, long cardio less and less. Last week I found Nerd Fitness and it's opened up my eyes! I found the articles on the Beginner Body Weight Training and Interval Cardio Training and decided to give them both a try (as well as the Paleo diet) for a month to see if I get any better results. The plan was to do the Body Weight Training 3 times a week and on all the off days do the Interval Cardio. So this leads to my question: Several days ago I did my first session of the Body Weight Training and it totally kicked my ass, but I got through it. I did the recommended reps as stated in the article. I did the 5 minute warm up and stretched after finishing the circuit. I noticed that the upper body exercises were really easy for me, and didn't strain me too much, but the legs exercises (the squats and lunges) just obliterated my quads! Starting the next day I had terrible pain in my quad muscles, such that any activity that involved walking, sitting, standing, etc. was so excruciatingly painful that there was no way I'd make it to the gym to get on a treadmill. It's day three after doing this first session, and the pain in my legs is down to a tolerable level where I can walk normally, but the muscles are still extremely sore to the touch and sitting, standing, putting any strain on the legs still hurts. I can't help but feel anxious because I'm used to going to the gym every single day, and so far I've missed almost half a week because my legs hurt too much. Has this happened to anyone? Is this normal? Should I reduce the reps on the squats/lunges until I get more strength there? Should I lower the goal from 3 times a week of the Body Weight Training to 2 times a week until I'm stronger? Any suggestions/techniques to minimize muscle soreness/pain after these workouts? Thanks for reading, and looking forward to hearing from you!