If ever you’ve wondered exactly what upping the amount of weight training you do could do for your body, let Canadian YouTuber Makari Espe’s story give you an idea. Already accustomed to 20-minute strength sessions twice a week, she committed to five 30-minute workouts every week for four weeks. To become “harder, better, faster, and stronger.” To put her results to the test, she recorded her strength before and after the challenge, from how long she could hold a plank to how many chin-ups and push-ups she could do.
Along the way, she also documented the reality of training five days a week on her YouTube channel. By the end of those 28 days, she wasn’t just feeling stronger—she could perform more reps, hold exercises for longer, and lift heavier weights. So, for the next month, I'm going to lift weights five times a week for 30 minutes.” “Basically, the idea is to do two big muscle groups per workout so that each muscle group is rested by the time you work it out again and we're not all out here hating our lives.
For example, it’s 7:00 in the morning and today we're going to be doing back and biceps. Tomorrow I'll be doing legs and shoulders, and then day three is a rest day.” “I didn't come up with this routine by myself, by the way. I'm not a personal trainer and I'm very lazy when it comes to planning my own workouts.
I wish this was a sponsor, but it's not. I'm just here to tell you that I'm getting all of my workouts from the Peloton app. This week I'll be doing the beginner 5-day program, and for the next 3 weeks I'll be doing these intermediate programs.” Espe performed a baseline strength test at the start of her 28-day challenge and the same test at the end of the 28 days.
She recorded the following results: Before:1:30 plank / 1-minute wall sit / 2 chin-ups / 10 push-ups / 25 × 10-lb shoulder presses. After four weeks:2-minute plank / 2-minute wall sit / 4 chin-ups / 15 push-ups / 25 × 15-lb shoulder presses. As Espe’s body got used to the change in training frequency, she noticed her soreness increased.
That post-workout pain has a name: delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS), the stiffness and tenderness that can kick in a day or two after a challenging or unfamiliar session as your muscles repair and adapt. By week two, she said, “My triceps are killing me more so than any other muscle group this whole challenge so far, my body is sore in many places and I'm very tired.” She added that her hamstrings were “so sore” and her “legs hurt so bad.” By week three, she said, “The place where it hurts right now is my shoulder blades; it feels like somebody hit me with a hammer.” The DOMS might have intensified, but she did work out an effective salve: active recovery. For Espe, that meant gentle cycling, swimming, and stretching, which helped increase blood flow to the sore areas and to ease the stiffness without adding to her training load.
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