When you first start working out again, your whole body aches, as though to punish you for all those weeks, months, or years of inactivity. DOMS, they call it, an appropriately foreboding acronym. This is a condition that slips over you like a dark storm cloud, making everyday activities difficult or even impossible.
After over two months of holiday season-induced couchpotatodom, my first sets of squats and lunges made climbing a simple flight of stairs seem like scaling the facade of Everest with broken legs. Reaching for that box of morning cereal became an Olympian task following my first round of push-ups and shoulder-presses. Even getting out of bed was a revelation of agony after a mere 20 minutes of crunches, sit-ups and planks the day before.
It's enough to make you give up this whole "healthy lifestyle" thing. Sure, you felt like crap as a couch potato, but at least you weren't in constant physical pain.
