I’ve been on the 12 week fat loss exercise for about 5 weeks and now starting my 6th week. I’m starting off from not having done any real exercise in 5 years, I am 36 years old, 5’ 11” and was 260lbs five weeks ago. I’ve lost 12lbs with the workout plan, a 500 calorie deficit meal plan and 1 mile run in 10-11 min 2-3 times a week.

After about 4 weeks I ended up with enough joint and tendon pain all over my body that I took a week off to recover and started this week back with a continuation of month one. Looking at the month 2 (which I should have been starting next week) I just don’t think I am ready for many of the exercises and that I need to loose another 40 pounds before attempting them.

For example, when I started I could barely do 2 push ups, so I substituted them with 30 lbs dumbbell bench presses and now I am up to about 10-15 push-ups. That is a substantial gain, but I am no where near able to do a plyo push-up. Others that I would just not be physically capable of doing are in month 2 are the alternating plank curl, single leg hip thrust, toe driver, plank side crunch, and more. Heck, I just now after 5 weeks got the proper form for an RDL so I wouldn’t have back pain.

I am not sure how to proceed in a way that I can get stronger but while not injuring myself. I’m sure my age doesn’t help either because I don’t remember needing recovery as much when I was 20.

@ericthered you can simply rotate the month 1 workouts for a while. That way you can work on improving them week after week, eventually getting strong enough where the routine are 'easy' which will enable you to move onto the next month. I mean.. think about it.. you could only do 1-2 push-ups when you first started month one, but can now do 10-15. If you can only do 2-3 reps of those other exercises to begin with, if you give them the same effort you gave your push-ups, you'll be doing 10-15 reps of them in no time at all too!

The other thing I might suggest for speeding up the weight loss (which might help with performing some of the movements in the circuits) is to do 2 or 3 mile runs, more like 20-30 minutes of cardio, as I assume you are doing steady state cardio (jogging) rather than HIIT (Interval sprints)? You can always do a fast jog for 1 minute then walk for 1 minute to as a form of HIIT until you get to a point where you can really start running.

Thanks Scott.

Here is the thing about the running; What really seems to be limiting my run training is the it takes me so long, 3-4 days, to recover from my leg workouts in the fat burning program. I usually do the legs a few hours after the run and then for the next few days I have enough fatigue in muscles (and some times join pain) that I can usually get only 2 runs a week. I have been considering doing legs only one day a week so I can get 3-4 runs a week instead. It has taken me 4months to go from nothing to 1 mi @ 10min/pace, but pushing past that has been rough without getting more run time in.

Thoughts?

Speaking of pain, I seem to be getting terrible knee pain from side lunges. I can manage almost every other leg rep in the plan, but those seem to be very hard on my knees. Any idea what could be the issue?

Are you warming up before your leg routines? Stretching out after you do your leg routines? What about foam rolling? All of this will help with the DOMS you are experiencing, and while you still might get some, it should mean they only last 1-2 days. What about a rowing machine? You'll still be using your legs, but not as much. At the end of the day.. if you can only get 1-2 runs in during the week, I would decide where you burn more calories - doing the leg workouts, or the slow run?

For the knee pain.. are you still making sure to push your knees out while lunging?