If you've been wanting to start a weight training program but have been putting it off, there are probably several reasons for your procrastination.
You may complain that there's not enough time in the day, and you promise yourself that you'll get to it eventually.
Perhaps you're worried about the financial cost of getting a trainer and joining a gym, since you're not confident about exercising on your own.
There are probably a whole host of reasons, but if you're worried about the discomfort brought about by lifting weights here's something you should know.
Generally speaking, the more you lift weights, the less soreness you will experience.
While scientists don't know exactly what causes the soreness, they believe that weightlifting produces tiny tears in the muscle which in turn brings inflammation and pain.
As you may have noticed, the pain usually peaks a day or two after the initial exercise instead of immediately after the exercise.
This is called delayed onset muscle soreness, and it is a signal that you should rest your muscles.
The basic principle here is that exercise stimulates your muscle to grow, as long as the muscle is challenged beyond its previous limits.
However, the actual growth of the muscle occurs at rest, not in the gym.
This process can continue throughout the next day, so if you don't give your body a rest your muscle building efforts will probably suffer eventually.
You can tell this is happening if you fail to progress during the next workout.
The good news is that as you progress in your program you will experience less soreness because your body adapts to training.
During your initial training sessions, however, you'll probably experience significant soreness.
This is just one of the obstacles that you'll have to overcome, but it will definitely be worth it in the end.
When things get tough on your journey, as they inevitably will, you will probably begin to doubt your goals.
When this happens, you must return to the original reason that you wanted to gain muscle.