Nutrition/Supplements

[faitswulff]

I started working out again after a long break, and my muscle fatigue is lasting for days, really destroying my motivation to stick to my schedule. I was just wondering if anyone knew of any legitimate, well-researched nutrition information, supplements, or techniques that I should know of to deal with this? I'm not sure I trust BodyBuilding.com, which advocates use of creatine, Branched Chain Amino Acids, and ice baths.

Thanks ahead of time!

[Mike H]

Are you sure it's not something that you're overlooking? Are you slowly building back up with your exercise/fitness routine, or are you doing too much, too often? How's your diet at the moment? Are you eating a relatively well-balanced diet with adequate nutrition, or do you need to clean up your food intake? Are you getting adequate sleep and rest? Are you stretching regularly and warming up and cooling down properly?

I've used creatine in the past (works pretty well, but I didn't use it when starting back up on an exercise routine) - but you'd get better results AFTER you've established a baseline of physical exercise instead of relying upon it from the get-go. Ice baths do work, but I'm not sure I've heard of people using them to reacclimate themselves to an exercise routine. Never tried BCAAs myself, but I've heard positive and negative comments about them.

[faitswulff]

I'm starting up slowly, so slowly that I'd rather not say what my exercise regimen is. Honestly, my diet has always been the most neglected aspect of my fitness, but I abhor junk food and I drink soda maybe once in a blue moon. I eat a lot of rice (I'm Chinese, go figure) with veggies and meat, but mostly meat. I was hoping to supplement instead of changing my eating habits, but I'm willing to do so if need be. Everything else is just fine.

I'm somewhat skeptical of anything other than vitamin or mineral supplements, due to a certain phobia about tinkering with my biochemistry, so I'm not likely to take creatine or BCAAs. Should I rethink this?

[Mike H]

To be honest, that you're complaining of muscle fatigue that lasts for days makes me think that this is a case of overtraining. However, there's also the factor that you are getting back into a fitness routine after a long layoff - you're going to be sore and fatigued, even if you are getting back into it slowly. I don't know what your exercise "mix" is, but if you're not hitting the weights excessively (3 times a week is generally enough) and not overdoing the cardio, it's probably just your body flushing out the crud and getting used to being stressed again on a regular basis.

You may want to look into meal replacement powders, especially after exercise. Just your basic mix of macronutrients, vitamins, and minerals. Other than that, the biggest issues to keep in mind are adequate warm-up and cool-down before and after exercise, and getting plenty of sleep/rest, which is the oft-underappreciated side of the equation. You need to let your body repair and rebuild itself.

[faitswulff]

The "crud" comment makes me think maybe I should drink more water and just keep it up. Thanks for all the help, Mike!

[Moonbear]

A lot of people really do overtrain when they start out, not realizing it's overtraining. For example, how many people think that you might need to start a weight lifting routine with NO weights? If it's been a long time, just a few reps of the bar without any weights could be too much. Same for even just walking for cardio, if you have been very sedentary, just a 5 min walk on a slight incline could really strain muscles that haven't been used for a while.

If you haven't seen a physician for a check-up in a while and are starting a new workout routine, it's good to go in for a physical and get an "all-clear" to start your workout program. Make sure this fatigue that's lasting for days isn't due to some underlying problem that you should be aware of. If it's just muscle fatigue, then backing off and more gradually picking up the routine may help.