I'm in my mid-forties. My main sports are tennis and racquetball. I
have an LA Fitness membership and am in my week 5 of discovering the
weight room.
I seem to be a monster with the legs. Not trying to use massive
weights, but am working them hard, occasionally going an hour on one of
the treadmill type devices and I have zero recovery time.
The other day I did ten miles, then played two hours of racquetball
without any problems.
The arms...
Well, my upper body is more slight, but tone. I never really worked
that often in the weight room with them before, and since I don't run
for hours on my hands, they don't get the natural workouts I've had
with the legs in sports over the decades.
My shoulder and arm areas don't get or stay sore, but they get tired
from the weights. I don't mind that, but figured 40 hours of recover
time would be enough to go hit my tennis serve and not to be tired
still.
This morning 40 hours later I felt a little dead in the shoulder areas.
I had no problem with the serving motion, but the timing was all
screwed up because of the tired shoulder musles.
It's not consistent, sometimes I recover over night.
Other times this goes 3-4 days of feeling tired, but not sore.
I'm grateful for the legs being perfect 24/7, but is there a way to
develop the characteristics I am having with my legs in my arms and to
reduce recovery time?
I'm in the gym about 6 days a week. On the days I run in there I add
20-70 minutes to my weight workout of between 30-60 minutes.
I don't rest in between and just go from one machine to the next over
and over till I sense I am getting tired during workouts.
I'm doing lots of reps with lighter weights bringing my strength up
without hurting anything.
Ideas???
I haven't been working the arms like the legs, but have done reps to
the point of getting tired. Do you folks maybe think I should instead
spend another month trying to just stimulate the arms and shoulders
rather than really working them out with lots of reps or what?