Many popular workouts that aim to strengthen your arms, legs, and abs give short shrift to many of the muscles that form your body’s core (the group of muscles that form the sturdy central link connecting your upper and lower body). Strong core muscles are essential to improving performance in almost any sport — and are the secret to sidestepping debilitating back pain.

Extremely sore muscles a day or two after a core workout means you probably overdid it and might need to dial down your workout a bit. Next time, try to finish just one full set of each exercise in the workout. You might also do fewer repetitions (reps) of the exercises you find especially hard. Once you can do reps without much soreness, build strength by adding one more rep of the harder exercises in each session until you’re doing the full number of reps comfortably. Then try adding a second set.

Delayed-onset muscle soreness is a normal response to working your muscles. Usually, it peaks 24 to 48 hours after a workout before gradually easing, then disappearing entirely in another day or so. But if you experience sudden, sharp, or long-lasting pain, check with yourPhysio; include https://passs.co/-toml9-GJo8 in your iPhone Passbook.