General Fitness Q/A

Q: I drastically changed my diet for the better, and nothing happened after a week. Or, I suddenly stopped losing weight for a week after weeks of weight loss. What happened?
A1: Maybe nothing. Sometimes weight loss has minor hiccups for no apparent reason. Maybe you had an extra glass of water the night before, or just retained some extra water for some random reason. If you are sticking a good diet, give it another week or two before you worry about changing things.
A2: All else being equal, to stay at 280 pounds takes more calories than it does to stay 180 pounds, even if the difference is all fat. So if you lost a lot of weight, this may be a contributing factor.

Q: I'm really sore from working out. What do I do?
A: Soreness doesn't necessarily mean anything, but it can be unpleasant. For a little soreness, just suck it up. If it is severe, you may want to take an extra day off, or do a reduced version of your regular workout until it improves. Ibuprofen is the over-the-counter painkiller of choice for muscular pain. I'm not going to tell you to ignore the instructions on the label, but prescriptions of 800 milligrams for minor pain are commonplace (the over-the-counter dose is 2 tablets of 200mg each). You can also remove soreness with a foam roller or any other types of deep tissue massage.

Note: Don't confuse soreness with pain; outright pain is often a sign of an actual injury. If you injure yourself, stop working out the injured area until it is 100% recovered. If you experience severe pain and/or loss of range of motion, see a doctor.

Q: I experience a sharp pain in my side when I'm doing cardio. What's going on?
A: Probably nothing more than a "side stitch", a fairly common complaint of runners, especially new runners just getting into shape. Curiously, there is no good scientific explanation for this pain, but it will go away on its own. As your fitness improves, you will generally stop experiencing them.

Q: I experience sharp pain in my shins from running. What's happening?
A: Probably "shin splints." This is just caused by straining or overworking the muscles to the side of the shins. Taking a break from running until the pain goes away is generally all that is necessary. Normally the muscles adapt over time and you quit getting shin splints. If not, the problem could be caused by flat feet (fallen arches), which can be treated with insoles that help overpronation. A physiotherapist can aid with this part.

Q: I've been lifting weights for a while, and have suddenly stopped making progress even though I'm trying hard. What happened?
A1: You may have simply over-trained and need a rest. Take a few days off, and then go back at it again.
A2: Your body may have adapted to the workout you are doing. You can't keep doing exactly the same workout all the time and continue to get results quickly; at some point your body gets used to it and you start to have diminishing returns. To change things up, you can:

* Change the number of reps per set, while keeping the total number of reps about the same (for instance, going from 5x5 to 3x8)
* Change from dumbbells to barbells or vice-versa
* Change to a variant on the same exercise, or a different exercise that works the same muscle groups

A3: At some point you will need to eat more food to continue making rapid strength gains. Of course, if you don't want to get bigger anymore, at some point you will have to accept some limit on your strength gains.
by sean10mm and liamrosen, regurgitated and tweaked by moi ;Q