after several months of regular cardio and running I’m now starting to train my upper body, basically planks and working out with a dumbbell. I’m tall and skinny, so I never had much fat or muscle mass in my arms.
I’ve trained my arms for 3 days in a row, nothing fancy: upright rows, bent-over rows and triceps kickbacks, 10 repetitions each, 2 rounds.
After that I’m so sore I cannot do more, so I turn to cardio and do planks (front and side) and some yoga.
Today, fourth day, I’m not in the mood to tone up my arms because they burn, but should I keep exercising? Doesn’t the burn mean muscle is being built?
I also don’t know if I should work with my arms less than with my legs, should I do cardio and running 5 times a week and arm toning only 3? Would it be better to do both in the same session or to alternate (odd days cardio and running, even days arm toning and yoga)?
Really recommend finding a workout split. I do push, pull, legs x2 and an hour on the stationary bike on Sundays. Monday is push, so my chest, tris, and shoulders are all hit. Then they’re rested the next two days when I get back to push. You could do also do a bro split or just find something that works best for you. The important part is that you’re giving your muscles time to rest between sessions.
On that note, the most effective way to gain muscle is to be in a calorie surplus, train to failure, and progressive overload (and steroids). So make sure you’re gaining weight (slowly, don’t just start bingeing cake). Push your sets to the point where you can no longer keep form. Try to lift more than you did last time (either more reps or more weight).
Don’t skip legs. I don’t mean cardio, do some actual resistance work on your legs or prepare to find yourself top heavy. “Skipping leg day” is a meme for a reason.
OP sounds a little new to all of this, so they might need some elaboration on your terms. Most of the terms are pretty obvious once they are explained, but without clarification, they might be unclear.
I’m going to take a stab at it, but someone please correct me if I get something wrong.
Push/pull are referencing the movement of the exercise. For example, push exercises are ones where the muscle is being used to push the weight, so push-ups/press-ups are a push exercise because you are pushing. Pull exercises, conversely, are like rows, where your muscles are pulling the weight.
As far as I’m aware, bro splits are just focusing on a single muscle group each day/workout session. E.g. Monday: chest, Tuesday: back, Wednesday: legs, etc.
Calorie surplus is, of course, eating more calories than your body uses in a day. You can be at a caloric deficit, caloric maintenance, or caloric surplus, depending on whether you want to lose, maintain, or gain weight. Your body needs more ingredients if it’s going to build more muscle. There are some formulas to give you an idea of your caloric maintenance, but they’re just guidelines. That number is going to vary from person to person, and can change for you over time as you progress.
Training to failure is doing an exercise (with good form!) until you can’t anymore. If you can do a lot of them, you probably need to increase the weight/resistance. One very important thing when training to failure is to keep good form, otherwise you increase the risk of injury. If you can’t do it with good form, that is the point of failure, even if you could do more.
Progressive overload is just gradually increasing the weight, resistance, or reps as you progress. It should be a planned progression, not just deciding in the moment that you could do one more. For example, the first week you might do 3 sets of 10 reps at 100kgs. The next week, you could do 1 set of 11 followed by two sets of 10 at the same weight. Then 2 sets of 11 and 1 set of 10 reps. Eventually, you could drop back to 10 reps, but increase the weight.