Weight and Bleed

It's been a while since I've posted. I started logging my food intake two weeks ago on another site, so I've been making note of my workouts there, as well as my achievements. I'll try to head back and post all those logs and updates later on. So this might not make any sense in the end.

Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS)

Today I wanted to talk about DOMS, or lack or DOMS, in my case. I was at the gym last Friday, heading over to do some squats when one of the trainers says "Weren't you just doing squats yesterday or the day before?" I reply that, yes, I had done them on Wednesday. I do a full-body routine three times per week as set up by one of the other trainers. He said that I should be hitting the lower body maybe only twice per week max. That if I lift on Monday, then I should be so fatigued and sore that I don't even want to lift until Friday. That got a confused look from me. "I never get muscle soreness."

The conversation continued as we discussed what I was doing with the full body rather than a split. That its a different approach and workout, so maybe what I was doing was fine. But the bit about never getting DOMS really does worry me. I mean, I will shake and fatigue and feel like I can't lift a pencil after a workout, but the next couple of days its like nothing ever happened. The last time I experienced muscle soreness was the first time the PT gave me the current routine. I'd never lifted that heavy or in that manner before, so it was a one-time shock to the system. After that, however, even though I started lifting even heavier on the second go around, I stopped getting post-workout response from my muscles.

After the first couple of weeks, I started to change things up, since its important that your muscles don't become too accustomed to an exercise or routine. I started throwing in ab-work and extra higher-rep/body weight leg and core work during my rest periods. I had been used to super-setting everything, so I wanted to get my heart-rate back up during these workouts. I was gaining weight, and the tummy kind, not the muscle kind. My body was used to a faster pace.

Even with the added activity between sets, I still got little response from my body although I certainly feel better, more tired, more invigorated, during my workouts. The order of my exercises shifts around regularly due to busy equipment. And even upper body first vs lower body first swaps for the same reason some times, with a little crossover in between as a transition.

I've added other classes back in like bootcamp and pilates. Sometimes I'll hit muscle conditioning even (which I now blow out of the water after my heavy lifting). I know that I'm not overtraining anymore either, since its all pretty well spread out with muscle recovery time in between.

I guess I'm just at a loss. I need something entirely new perhaps? I'm going to e-mail the PT to see if we can change things up or what his opinion on the matter is. I haven't escalated my running at all, if anything cut down, so I have to start integrating that back into my workouts. I thought that I'd do that with this second session, but it will likely wait until the third. Or rather, a marathon-training-based strength workout during marathon season will have to wait until September. Right now I want to know why my body isn't responding to the effort I put in, or if perhaps, I'm not putting in nearly enough.

For example, I was squatting at 70 for the past month, and then I realized one day that I could do so much more and still complete my sets with food form. So last week I started squatting with 95lb. And honestly, I could probably push it to 105lb. My leg presses were at 135lb and I realized last night when I was bumping up to 170lb on that I was selling myself short. I could easily press 180lb if not more. I do walking lunges with 50 (2, 25-lb dumbbells), but could even go up on that, although my my upper body is the trouble there rather than my legs.

Which brings us to upperbody where I haven't see the kind of gains I've seen or even myself credit for with my legs. My curl-to-press I still alternate between a pair of 17.5 and 20lb dumbbells. I'm stuck at 70lb on my un-spotted chest press. My dips/triceps are the only really powerhouse I have these days. My lat pull-downs have me at (12.5 x 7 = 87.5), which is meager gains and doesn't seem to bode well for my pull-ups. Even if I'm gaining weight, that shouldn't impact the lat pull-downs the way it might my pull-ups. Overall, I suppose I'm frustrated. I know that its only been maybe 5 weeks on this routine, but I feel that I should either be seeing more response and adapation from my body or at least remain sore as I tear the muscle fibers and build them bigger and stronger.