Learn Hardcore Indonesian: Lengan saya sakit setelah latihan kebugaran intensif. - My arm hurts after intensive fitness training.

So Lengan saya sakit focuses on the arm area, not the hand. In everyday talk, some people might still say Tangan saya sakit and be understood, but it’s less precise.

Why is saya after lengan instead of before it, like “my arm”?

In Indonesian, the possessed noun usually comes before the possessor pronoun:

lengan saya = my arm (literally: arm my)
rumah saya = my house
teman saya = my friend

You normally do not say saya lengan. The pattern is:

noun + saya / kamu / dia / mereka / kita / kami

Does sakit here mean “sick” or “in pain”? How do I know?

sakit can mean:

sick / ill (a state)
in pain / hurting (a sensation somewhere in the body)

In Lengan saya sakit, it means my arm hurts / is in pain.
You tell from context:

Saya sakit. → I am sick.
Kepala saya sakit. → My head hurts / I have a headache.
Perut saya sakit. → My stomach hurts.

Whenever sakit follows a body part, it usually means “hurts” rather than “is sick.”

Could I say Lengan saya terasa sakit? What’s the difference?

Yes, you can say:

Lengan saya sakit.
Lengan saya terasa sakit.

Differences in nuance:

Lengan saya sakit. → simple statement: My arm hurts.
Lengan saya terasa sakit. → literally: My arm feels painful.

terasa adds a slightly more descriptive, “I can feel it” nuance, but in everyday conversation people very often just say sakit without terasa.

What does latihan kebugaran literally mean? Is it a fixed phrase?

Literally:

latihan = practice / training / exercise
kebugaran = fitness (from bugar “fit, fresh”)

So latihan kebugaran = fitness training or fitness workout.

It’s not a single fixed idiom; it’s a normal noun phrase: training + fitness. However, it is a natural, common collocation in health/fitness contexts.

You might also hear:

latihan fisik = physical training
olahraga = sports / exercise (more general)

Why is intensif at the end? Can it go before latihan kebugaran?

In Indonesian, adjectives usually come after the noun:

latihan intensif = intensive training
latihan kebugaran intensif = intensive fitness training

So intensif naturally goes at the end of the whole noun phrase.

You would not normally say intensif latihan kebugaran; that sounds wrong in standard Indonesian because it reverses the usual order.

The pattern is:

noun + modifiers (other nouns) + adjective
latihan + kebugaran + intensif

How is setelah used compared to sesudah or habis?

All three can relate to “after,” but usage differs:

setelah = after (neutral, common in spoken and written Indonesian)
- Setelah latihan, saya mandi. = After the workout, I shower.
sesudah = after (synonym of setelah, slightly more formal or bookish, but also common)
- Sesudah latihan, saya mandi.
habis = after / once finished, but originally means “finished, used up”
- Habis latihan, saya mandi. (more colloquial / casual)

In your sentence, you could replace setelah with sesudah or habis:

Lengan saya sakit sesudah latihan kebugaran intensif.
Lengan saya sakit habis latihan kebugaran intensif. (more casual)

There’s no past tense marker. How do we know this is “hurt after” and not “hurts after”?

Indonesian verbs and adjectives do not change form for tense. Time is understood from context or from time words.

Lengan saya sakit setelah latihan kebugaran intensif. can mean:

My arm hurt after an intensive fitness workout.
My arm hurts after an intensive fitness workout.

If you want to make the past time clearer, you can add a time adverb:

Tadi pagi lengan saya sakit setelah latihan kebugaran intensif.
= This morning my arm hurt after an intensive fitness workout.

But grammatically, the sentence itself is tenseless; you infer tense from context.

Could I drop saya and just say Lengan sakit setelah latihan kebugaran intensif?

You can drop saya, but it changes the feel:

Lengan saya sakit setelah ... → clearly my arm.
Lengan sakit setelah ... → sounds more general or impersonal, like “The arm hurts after…” or “Arms hurt after…”, or sometimes like a diary note where “my” is understood from context.

In normal conversation, when you talk about your own body, you usually include the pronoun:

Kepala saya sakit.
Perut saya sakit.
Lengan saya sakit.

Is there a more casual way to say “my arm hurts” here? Something I might say to a friend.

Yes, you can make it more casual by:

Using aku instead of saya
- Lengan aku sakit setelah latihan kebugaran intensif.
Using the suffix -ku for “my”
- Lengan ku sakit setelah latihan kebugaran intensif.
  (Normally written as lenganku sakit, one word.)

Even more informal, everyday speech might shorten or rearrange:

Lenganku sakit habis latihan kebugaran intensif.
Wah, lenganku sakit banget habis latihan. = Wow, my arm hurts so much after the workout.

But the original sentence is standard, neutral, and perfectly fine.

Is latihan here a verb (“to train”) or a noun (“training”)? How can I tell?

In this sentence, latihan is a noun:

setelah latihan kebugaran intensif = after an intensive fitness workout/training

You can tell because:

It follows setelah, which is usually followed by a noun phrase or a clause.
It is directly modified by kebugaran and intensif, like a noun:
latihan (noun) + kebugaran (noun acting as modifier) + intensif (adjective).

As a verb, you’d normally see it with ber-:

Saya berlatih setiap hari. = I train / I practice every day.

So:

latihan (noun) = training, exercise
berlatih (verb) = to train, to practice