I began a rigorous program two weeks ago (with a trainer every day, lots of supervision). I work out every day for around two hours, around 1.5 hours lifting weights. The rest cardio.

Anyhow, I was begging my trainer to start working abs and he wanted me to wait a while. I don't know why, I live in Mexico and my language skills aren't the best yet.

SO, I pulled a muscle in my lower abdomen this past Saturday at the park, just playing with my kids.

Yesterday my trainer wanted to start me on abs and I was SO excited! But the first move I made I ended up screaming in pain. I didn't realize I was still injured and now it's WORSE.

I tried to explain to him why I couldn't do it, I think he understood but he looked at me like I was kinda nuts. Maybe it was my Spanish.

I guess besides my pride being hurt, I just REAAALLLYYYY want to start working these damn abs!

But I'm hurt. Which means I need to wait.

Do you experienced folks know ANYTHING I can do to help myself heal as quick as possible? Do you think it's a good idea to take Tylenol or something of the like to help with swelling? There is no obvious swelling, but it just hurts (dull) all the time. God forbid I sneeze.

Can one really ice or heat their abdomen (there's a lot of fat to go through!) and do you think that's even useful?

Anybody have experience with this?

No hernia btw, thank God.

Wow... that's way, way too much exercise unless you're a trained athlete. More than an hour a day and you could be seriously depressing your resting metabolic rate and make weight loss much harder. Phinney/Volek said they've seen people's metabolic rate slow as much as 15% from over-exercising, especially while dieting.

You MUST have days away from exercise to let your muscles heal and let your body recuperate. I'm not at all surprised you were injured. This is far too much, far too quickly. It is just going to take time to heal and if you keep over exercising without giving yourself recovery time, this is just going to happen over and over again.

I'd recommend this book for you. The authors are experts in working with athletes and regular folks too in both exercise and low carb dieting.

I guess I shouldn't have used "rigorous" as a word. My trainer is great and has been working very carefully with me. We only work one of 5 muscle groups per day. Those muscles then rest till their next turn. He's started me off with low weights and reps, but enough different activities to keep me sweating but not straining for the whole time. I've been doing different typed of cardio to not stress any given muscle group further, the most being Zumba. Sweaty but not stressful. I'm quite active in my job and haven't felt stressed by any of this, quite the opposite, full of energy and seeing results already.

But thank you for the book recommendation, it looks pretty great

Maybe try some Arnica?

Do they have that in the states?? LOL!

And please don't take that the wrong way, I only laugh, because before moving to Mexico I'd never heard of it. Here though they use it for eeeeverything. I think the school I work in must go through a gallon tub a week! I thought it was just a placebo.

Does it really have herbs or something helpful in it? I'm totally going to Google it! How interesting!

I tried REALLY hard with my trainer tonight, to talk about what I've got going on and my Spanish worked. He said we should lay off any exercises (even back or chest) that make me feel even the slightest twinge in that muscle. He said average it could take around 15 (or a lot more if not careful) days but that we would just wait it out and see, be careful.

Tonight was back and when I did the lap pull down in FRONT of my chest I had to stop because I could feel it pulling. But the same exercise BEHIND my head didn't hurt at all! The human body is soooo complex!

Thank You for the Arnica suggestion!