Should I Work Out Through Soreness?

Last night, I walked over to Equinox to reserve my bike for the spin class. I had hoped to do a Vipr class, but I somehow read the schedule wrong. I had some sharp pain in my lower back as I walked over, but I really wanted to work out.

Some people say I’m good at “listening to my body,” but I say I’m just lazy at heart when it comes to working out and will seize any opportunity to not work out, if possible. I enjoy working out once I do it, but it’s still a fight to make myself work out. I reserved my bike, and then I had a little time so I walked over to Duane Reade to look at vitamins. (I’m cool like that.)

I had talked about multi-vitamins with a pharmacist a few weeks ago, then Tina told me she’d consistently taken a multi-vitamin every day for a month and she had a lot more energy. Then I read Janeetha’s post on vitamins. Okay. I need to take multivitamins–or at least give them a try. The pharmacist said with my healthy diet, I was probably okay without a multi-vitamin, but it couldn’t hurt.

She did say that as a runner and a young woman (who limits her dairy) that calcium was incredibly important. I know that I feel great when I take B-vitamins, so I looked for a vitamin that had high levels of B and calcium. I ended up buying Alive! women’s multi-vitamins. They had decent levels of B and calcium and were made of fruits and veggies. I took one this morning, and maybe it’s a placebo, but I have a decent amount of energy. It was also really easy on my sensitive tummy to digest.

But back to the spin class. I decided to give it a try, and if my back hurt, I’d stop. It didn’t, and so I finished the class and my back feels better now. It can be hard to tell when to work through soreness and when to give it a rest, but I think that in general, active recovery can be helpful, and your body will tell you when it really needs rest.

It will also tell you when it really needs a spinach feta wrap, and that’s what my body told me this morning.