Yesterday was not a stellar day. Was going to ride but because of a load of errands and a client scheduled for nutritional counseling at 2:00, I decided to do a lower body routine instead. Got through my barbell squats no problem. Then moved to deadlifts. Did a warmup set with 2/3 my normal weight. Then went to full load for the work sets but decided that instead of doing 3 sets of 8 reps, I would do 5 sets of 5 reps in anticipation of focusing on building strength and increasing the weight in the future. Seemed reasonable. No increase to the load, keep the volume about the same, just change the set pattern. Only problem was that on the 4th rep of the second work set, I felt or heard a pop in my right hamstring. (I swear I actually heard it.) No question I have a tear in the hamstring. I’m pretty sure it’s a grade 1 tear since I have realatively full mobility and about 80% range of motion before discomfort occurs. Not going to be doing any squatting or deadlifts for awhile though. Glad I banked my remaining 14 PT sessions for the year, lol. Gonna try riding my bike around my development to see how that feels. No hills, just flats. If I can’t ride because of this, I think I will need to be sedated!
That’s interesting info abou UTIs, Bunsen. I didn’t know that. How do you diagnose a UTI without the usual symptoms?
Nice but buggy run this morning on a path near the beach. I use an Map my Run to record my time and distance, and it didn’t automatically stop like it normally does when I stop running. So it thought I ran an additional 3 miles at 45 mph – the time I drove back – which made for some out of whack averages for this run.
Oh, Michael! I hope it isn’t too bad. I hate that for you!
My streak is at 365 days, so I’m calling that a year. Whew. We’ll see how long this goes. I’ll confess to something stupid and obsessive. I somehow messed up calculating what I wanted to run today for a 38 mile week and I wound up with 37.9. I was convinced I could let it go, but I couldn’t. Still had my running shoes on after breakfast, so went out and did .2 more. That seemed less stupid than going out for just .1 for some reason. I’m sure our lurkers will be very impressed!
MOWC - it’s only obsessive if you tried for 40.
Michael - popped the same calf twice in one year. I have a rolled up muscle ball in my right calf. I always thought the popped “sound” was just an expression. You do hear it. First time I did it , I told my wife it was more painful than childbirth. She wasn’t amused.
Fireandrain, apparently, in elderly, UTIs can manifest differently. Confusion and worsening of dementia are common symptoms, while pain and other issues may be absent:
https://www.agingcare.com/Articles/urinary-tract-infections-elderly-146026.htm
Of course, I am not officially “elderly,” but I had no pain, no cloudy urine, no typical symptoms, I just felt dizzy and could not focus well on mental tasks. Thank goodness the doc ran a urine test.
Important to know for all of us with elderly parents.
Michael, hope your leg is not too serious - maybe C3Baker will take pity on you and send some cookies your way!
MOWC, I think I would have done the same thing. You are kicking my butt in mileage!
But I don’t do much of anything else exercise-wise!
Bunsen- I saw a lot of that in my elderly mother, stepmother and sister’s MIL. No pain, but mentally off and out of sorts.
When I hurt my back, I heard the disk pop. It sounded like someone snapped their fingers behind me.
I tried using an app to track my mileage while cutting the lawn this morning, but just it looks like a 2 yr old scribbled on my yard. I guess the GPS isn’t accurate enough.
Any tips for dealing with DOMS? I don’t feel like I am working out that hard yet (I do 2x12 of most of the individual exercises but don’t come close to failure on any of them), but the 2nd and 3rd day after, I feel like I’ve been body-slammed into the ground. Is the best thing just to work through it?
Last time I had it (a few weeks back), I just restricted my activity to light walking and got a massage which was painful but worthwhile.
Sorry about the pop, MNK.
Felt good riding around my neighborhood so I did a 36 mile relaxed ride averaging a mid 15’s pace. Just rode my leg, listening carefully to what it was saying. Never felt pain, just tightness and occasional mild soreness in the belly of the hamstring when climbing hills. Hoping that getting the blood circulating through the muscle will promote healing.
In thinking about what happened yesterday, the smartest thing I did was come to an immediate stop as soon as I felt it happen. The old adage of “no pain, no gain” is b.s. Discomfort and hard effort that leave you gasping for breath are one thing. Pain is your body telling you something is wrong. There’s a critical difference. If I had done one more rep, if I had taken a recovery interval, shook it off and had tried another set, I have no doubt that instead of what appears to be a mild tear, I would have caused serious damage.
@notrichenough, can you provide more info? How many and which exercises are you doing for each body part? How much recovery time are you taking between each set? Which body parts are experiencing DOMS? How long have you been doing this routine and how many times a week are you doing it? How many days off are you taking between each resistence training session? How much sleep are you getting. DOMS is a function of volume, intensity and recovery. This information can help dial in what’s causing it for you and how to remediate what you are doing so as to avoid it.
@MomofWildChild, I almost laughed my smoothie through my nose reading what you did for your mileage! I can’t tell you the number of bike rides I’m on where at the end, we all compare computers and take the one with the highest mileage for the ride as the official result. Then do the same for average speed. Or if we come back to a parking lot, someone claims to be riding around the lot in circles just to cool down but we all know it just to rack up another tenth or two to even out the mileage to a whole number. OCD, who, us, lol :).
Right now I’ve been lifting twice a week. I’d like to get that to three times, except I’m not sure if I should push through the muscle soreness.
I try to hit all the major groups since I only get there a couple time a week, here is what I am doing right now. Most of these are two sets of 12 reps:
Leg extension 75 lbs*
Leg curl 90 lbs*
Leg press 110 lbs each leg separately*
Calf raise body weight+20 lbs each calf separately
Stair climb, 48 steps while carrying 2x20 dumbbells
Lat pulldown 100 lbs
Pull-ups, 85 pounds of weight-assist
Row 90 pounds*
Butterfly 110 lbs*
Core rotations 20 lbs (I don’t know what the real name is, you grab a handle from the side on a pulley cable machine, lock your arms, and move the weight by rotating your core)
Internal shoulder rotations 10 lbs
External shoulder rotations 10 lbs
Bench press 155 lbs
Bicep curl two 25 lb dumbbells
Shrugs, two 45lb dumbbells
Roman chair, body weight only, 2 sets x 8 reps
Bicycle row for abs, 1 set of 30 each leg, 1 set of 25
Push-ups to failure, usually around 30
- these are on machines with eccentric cams, who knows what the actual weight is.
Been doing this for about two months now. This takes me about an hour to 1:10 to complete. It leaves me tired at the end, but as I said, for most of these I don’t feel like I am working all that hard. I’m not sweating very much. The only one that leaves me gassed is the stair climb, which I think is more a comment on my cardio condition. Those little weights send my HR through the roof! The bench press gets a little hard at the end of the second set. The order gets varied a bit depending on which machines are free at any moment.
Which parts are experiencing DOMS? Eh, pretty much everything. After two months I would have expected my body to have adjusted to it by now, but perhaps I am overdoing it.
Sleep, about 7-7.5 hrs a night.
Glad you could ride, Michael. WildChild is doing some group ride tomorrow from Ben Franklin Bridge to the shore and back starting at 5am. Today he did a really hard mountain bike ride in the Poconos. It took him 5 hours.
Today: Did a pilates and a yoga. Had an awesome almond milk and chocolate smoothie! Tomorrow morning, taking a 2 hour bike ride with H and then doing another pilates class.
My back is sore, but I really like how our backyard looks like now! 
I did a walk on conservation land–a 5 mile loop to the ocean and back. Walked to our local fireworks tonight (about 3 miles). Trainer tomorrow–surprised she was working on the holiday.
I volunteered at the Paralympic trials here in Charlotte NC. Friday morning at the track and field, and then Saturday at the Cycling time trial. I helped in the discus competition, where competitors strap themselves into stationary chairs which in turn are strapped down so they don’t move. Imagine throwing the discus from a sitting, stationary position. One of the women competitors in the discus later set a world record for her classification in a track event and is going to Rio. Friday evening I got to meet Tatyana McFadden who has totally dominated the women’s marathon wheelchair division for the past 4 years. She has won Boston 4 times, and Chicago, New York and London I can’t tell you how many times. She won all of her events in the trials here and will compete in 7 events in Rio. She graciously signed a souvenir sign I had taken home from the Boston Marathon 2 years ago! It is really inspiring to watch these competitors. Some are certainly out to win gold and defeat the competition, but so many of them are just trying to do the best they can, which is basically my approach to Masters competition.
Very great, NJRes. I love that. Talk about never giving up!
@notrichenough, that’s quite a workout you’ve put together. If I were to hazard a guess, I suspect your DOMS is being caused by a combination of excessive volume and some imbalances in your program. First, if I understood your list correctly and counted accurately, you are doing 36 sets in 70 minutes. That’s a lot of sets with little recovery time between sets. Check to see if you are giving yourself a solid minute to minute and a half between sets.
You are doing 10 sets for legs (5 exercises), 8 sets for back (4 exercises, 2 of which secondarily hit shoulders), 6 sets for chest (3 exercises, 2 of which secondarily hit triceps and shoulders), 2 sets for biceps (1 exercise), 6 sets for abs/core (3 exercises) and then 4 sets of shoulder/rotator cuff (2 exercises). I don’t know what your goals are but if they are general fitness, increasing your strength and building some additional lean muscle, I would make a number of changes that would reduce the number of different exercises to no more than 2 per body part in any one session, focus on more compound functional movement exercises for the lower body (like squats or lunges) instead of isolated machine based exercises, and use progressive overload concepts within an 8-12 rep range for many of the exercises and work towards building to 3 sets per exercise. Some exercises, like the internal and external shoulder rotations I would eliminate entirely (unless you have a specific reason you are doing them for shoulder/rotator cuff rehab) and others, like the many back exercises you are doing, I would cycle between every couple of weeks to provide variety.
One other thing that could be very relevant. You state that you are doing this routine twice per week. How many days separate each session? Are you doing any other exercises in between?
From what you showed me, however, I think your DOMS is clearly due to too much volume, too little recovery and a failure to apply concepts of progressive overload in your workout resulting in your body not being able to make adaptive changes over the 2 months you have done this routine. DOMS is a sign that you are doing too much and/or that your program is not structured to promote adaptation through progressive overload. Constantly having DOMS is a sign that systemically your routine needs to be adjusted. Have you considered spending a couple of sessions with a trainer to get some guidance on structuring your program?