Originally Posted by
noglider
I overdid it last week. I think it was the dead lifts with the 80-lb barbell. My lower back got pretty sore. Then yesterday and today, I shoveled snow, which made it worse. My shoulders hurt, too. I'm doing tons of stretching now, which helps. I'm also taking ibuprofen, which also helps. I'm walking around like an old man, very slowly. I don't want to make any sudden moves, because they can cause spasms. On the other hand, I am swinging my hips farther than normal when walking. Walking seems to help.
It's a long slow process. I know just how you feel because I feel the same way a fair part of the time. You're in the earliest phase of muscular conditioning. That's the first thing: just building some endurance into the muscles so they can do many repetitions. There's always a desire to go right for the big stuff: benches, deadlifts, squats, that sort of thing. The problem is the the many muscles involved in doing those complex lifts are not all equally strong or conditioned. So the big muscles kind of beat up on the supporting muscles of which you may not have been aware. Ouch.
The way out of that is to do a variety of exercises which target the various muscles in different ways.
I've attached a couple more PDFs. These are the exercises I start out with each year, ~Oct. 1 and use until Dec. 1, so 8 weeks. Could easily be longer. 8 weeks is barely enough to get on familiar with the exercises. For each exercise, you can find detailed GIFs on exrx.net and videos on youtube. DB = dumbbell, Incl = inclined, squats are only half-squats, leg extensions only between ~150° and 180°, Roman Chair = one set of bent leg lifts to exhaustion with knees going higher than hands, calf raises = one set one-legged standing calf raises to exhaustion using full range of motion, back machine = 3 sets of what feels hard, this kind of machine -
max range of motion the machine allows.
These are the basic exercises which get the muscles ready to work hard later. Not that these are easy if done properly and to exhaustion. Reps are high to force you to keep the weights down. Only 1 minute rest between sets, again to force you to not use too much weight. You're after exhaustion, not high weights so much.