I just started squats for legs last week.Im 16 , 5ft 8in , and weight 172lbs.I just started squats.I never squated before and I just had someone teach me.My other lifts are average,bench 240,deadlift 365.Squat is the weakness.So it was my second day squating and I did 135 for 5 reps and then did 185 for 5 too.The next time I got under the bar with 185 as soon as I went out of lockout position insane soreness type pain hit both of my legs and i could barely hit 3 reps.I know its not normal soreness because i only did 20 total reps before the pain set in.They are still sore and i could barely go down stairs at school.I have no idea why they are so sore i only did the squats during that workout and only 20 reps too.I also did like 30 reps of ham curls for warmup.
Eat food and drink water. Sleep a lot. There’s debate about stretching but I always feel if I spend just 5 minutes stretching my quads, hams, glutes, and abductors after squatting, I’m not as sore.
The biggest thing is continuing to do it. If you only do it once a week or less, you’ll always get sore. Keep doing it and stick with it, and eventually (like within a month) you won’t get that sore anymore unless you drasticaly change things or do way more volume than normal.
Good job buddy. You’re squatting. The soreness gets better. Stick with it.
But after 3 sets?
Sure. You’ve got a sample size of one squat workout, and you also did a bunch of ham curls to warm up. You hit 3 on your top set before your body told you to stop. Good on you for listening.
Rest at least a full day but no more than a week before you get back under the bar. Next time just warm up with air-squats and then a few sets with the bar before you start adding weight.
You’ll be fine. Welcome to squatting.
Right now I’m using a safety squat bar for my main squat day, the first workout like that my legs were sore after about 3-4 work sets and I was basically crippled the rest of the week. I don’t normally start to feel sore until later in the evening or the next day, but that day it hit me before I was done squatting. The first time you do a new exercise it will get you way more sore than usual, after a few weeks it isn’t so bad but squats are probably the number 1 soreness-inducing exercise.
Yes. Anything you aren’t used to has a high chance of making you really fucking sore.
@twojarslave is spot on.
20 reps and i cant walk down stairs for rest of week.rip.
pain in the muscles or actual joints?
Muscle and nearly all of it is quad soreness pain.
surprised you made it that far before you got sore. I think I waited 2 full weeks before squatting again after my very first squat workout. Hell, even now it’s still a problem sometimes.
walking downstairs was always way harder than up. kinda funny how that works out.
But yea, as has been mentioned, it will get better, with every session. I tend to tell people to give it 6 weeks after you start for the pain to really become manageable. It sucks in the beginning, but after you get acclimated to squatting, it will be ok.
The soreness will pass and then you can squat again and the soreness will return again 
I’m too old to remember how long this lasts when you first start out but it will go eventually if you squat enough. Until you squat a little bit differently… then it’ll come again haha …
…
… why do we do this again?
Thanks guys,i thought i have some rare case where i get sore after just a couple sets.So should i just train through the pain next time it comes?Yesterday i didnt do anymore leg work because i thought it might be an injury or something.
This is where rest and recovery come in to play. Eat well, eat enough and sleep well. This will help with the soreness.
To answer your question, yes. I did full-body for about 9 months where I squatted three times per week. I was always sore to some degree, except on deload weeks. I’d usually feel fine by the time I hit my second or third warm-up set.
If your body is screaming STOP, well, stop and figure out why. But people who only squat when they aren’t sore from squatting probably won’t ever squat enough to make the kind of progress they want.
Glad to see you’re squatting.
I have a weird attraction to squats, and like everyone else has said, you’ll heal. Granted I haven’t been sore for a long time, but when I start doing anything single-legged, I feel uncomfortably sore for the next handful of days.
Electrolyte drinks help a bit. Or you could just pop a couple of Ibuprofen, Advils, or Tylenol. I sometimes do that if I have a busy day ahead of me and I don’t want to be hobbling around all day.
Obviously soreness is a part of squats. I can’t tell whether you’re describing quad cramps or not though. I’ve had quad cramps before and they’re excruciating. They’ll also contribute to your DOMS afterwards. More water and sodium will help, but I’ll be honest, Id be pissed if I found out somebody learned to squat without going through some discomfort along the way.