I'm sorry that this is old and I'm well aware the topic has been covered before, but I was curious as to why...

I know ("know" as in what I've always been told) that if weight training a specific muscle group, it is best to wait a day so that the muscles may rebuild and repair themselves before your next session. I.e. total body workout every other day, or alternating every day.

A couple weeks ago I got serious about getting back in shape and significantly expanded my weight collection and bought a nice bench, all of which I keep in my house. I like to wake up early before work and work out for an hour and a half or so every day. I've seen vast improvement just in the couple weeks I've been doing this (I also do cardio in the form of jumping rope every day), but am I to believe that skipping the weight training every other day will build my muscular shape faster than doing the same routine every day? If so, why?

I'll believe a knowledgable explanation based in biological processes much easier than regurgitation of tired weight training advice anyone who's ever trained before has heard for years, so if someone could provide me that or a good link to read, I'd muuuch appreciate it.

2/13/2007 8:55:14 PM

look it is simple.

a body is not a mechanical machine, but a biological one, made up of tissues.

when you lift, you induce tiny tears in the muscle fibers. in the next couple of days--esp when you sleep, and that's why soreness is greatest when you get up in the morning for the next couple of days--your body awashes these microtears with various substances (in blood) to repair, including hormones etc. this is what causes the soreness.

after the repair, which could take from 2 to 7 days, the muscle is just a tiny bit bigger. not noticeable at all. but you know very well from your own experience that drops make a bucket, right?

now, if you were to lift before repair is complete, what would happen? you would induce even more tears in the already micro-tear-infested muscle. and then you will lift again before these are repaired, AND the first ones. you will always be ahead, and more importantly, the gap will keep getting bigger, the gap between where you are in training (i.e., the tears), and repairs.

so, what will happen?

you will die (eventually, that is). because instead of gaining slightly more muscle every time, you will be losing a few grams every time, and this will become several grams, and will keep on increasing. so, you will be destroying muscle (you will have the appearance of a starving person), and when muscle mass gets below a certain level, we die.

2/13/2007 9:03:47 PM

yeah i knew about all the tearing and repairing and all'at, but even WITH working out every day my muscle mass has significantly increased over a short time, which is why I was wondering. I'm certainly not losing muscle mass. I don't know if it's because I'll skip a day every now and then, or that my specific repair process happens at a higher-than-typical rate that the breakdown induced by a lifting session is repaired in 24 hours or so...that's why I was hoping to get some detailed insight into which I could introduce my own body chemistry, or to see if this was just a temporary increase as my muscles get back used to being trained and I'll eventually be causing detriment.

I understand the logic behind not giving your muscles enough time to repair, but I'm not sure that for some people it's not okay to move at a faster pace because of faster repairing. I'm a big guy (not fat, though I have a little to "work with") and I eat a wide range of food, thus I'm assuming I have a ready supply of the necessary protiens and nutrients...I've ALWAYS built muscle faster than most people I know, a good friend of mine used to get really pissed off about it because we worked out together and it never took me as long to catch up

[Edited on February 13, 2007 at 9:13 PM. Reason : xfdg]

2/13/2007 9:11:31 PM

then i guess your body just repairs faster--MUCH FASTER--than anybody elses.

more power to you.

however, keep an eye on your body. if somehow the magical gains start to slow down, or even reverse, then you know those were just initial gains. and then you will have to scale back like anybody else.

if however, you keep increasing, then wow, as i said, you have a special body... that i want (no homo).

2/13/2007 9:14:36 PM

That may be all it is...initial gains, "shaking the rust off" as I get back into training after a year or so of laziness. I may compromise by scheduling 5 days a week instead of 7...see what happens.





you want my body

2/13/2007 9:22:14 PM

Some strength training circles prefer to work everyday and sometimes multiple times a day. They are also very careful about never working to failure though. When you go to failure that is when your body needs a lot of rest. They usually do fewer reps (usually 3-5) and much longer rests (several minutes) and use almost exclusively compound excercises to avoid failure.

This is how i train doing deadlifts and military press about five times a week.


http://www.dragondoor.com/ is where i get a lot of my info from.

[Edited on February 13, 2007 at 9:28 PM. Reason : link]

2/13/2007 9:26:49 PM

This is going to make 2 pages.

2/13/2007 9:29:07 PM

consulting tww for weight training haha

there are a few of us on here, but i've lost motivation to explain shit on here concerning weight lifting. do a fucking search or go to http://www.t-nation.com and do some reading.

[Edited on February 14, 2007 at 3:28 AM. Reason : ]

2/14/2007 3:27:57 AM

awesome site. i've spent about the last hour zoning out reading that site...thanks

2/14/2007 3:16:14 PM

Quote :

"then i guess your body just repairs faster--MUCH FASTER--than anybody elses."

2/14/2007 5:13:33 PM

Quote :

"http://www.t-nation.com"

wow, great site! I will be spending a lot of time looking through all that.

2/14/2007 5:54:04 PM

How has nobody heard of t-nation?

2/14/2007 6:03:30 PM

http://www.exrx.net is good as well

2/14/2007 10:31:44 PM

yes tears and soreness comes from when you work out. but as you continue a schedule of working out, this soreness goes away because your muscles are gainging mass and endurance. Your muscles tear but you are not accumulating lactic acid as much as before. If you were to do a workout two days in a row, you could be fine, depending upon how hard you worked that muscle. If this was true about dying, then every runner would be dead after weeks of running and i know that a good running program is atleast 5 days a week of running.

what you want to do. is start a program, where you can work a whole body but not to where you are over exerting too much. the best way i have worked and always increased the most is when you work alternating days with alternating workouts

such as, lower body monday, upper body tuesday, lower body wed. and so on
sneaking in aerobic workouts like running, jump rope, or swimming or even playing basketball, into your mix. but the key is to give your body time to rest so you do not tear or injure ligaments, tendons, or muscles.............primarily ligaments, because your mucles will have slight tears in them when you put on way too much weight but your ligaments and joints are affected before your muscles are. thats why at times, ur shoulders and knees hurt and ur muscles are just sore.

you will not die but can have serious injury if u work wrong or with too much weight

always do the correct lift for the muscle u want to work and use correct form
keeping weights lower and completing a set is more important then staying high and not getting one or two more reps in.

my last thing is that working opposign muscles is key.....you cannot build your bicep without building your tricep. these muscles are linked to each other. so think wat the antagonist is of a lift and do a lift for that. either working multiple lifts to do a complete upper body workout, or you would break it down to do triceps and pecs one day and biceps and back the next.

get it?

2/14/2007 10:53:09 PM

from reading that site i've learned how important lower-body workouts are to your overall physique. I've never really focused much attention on my legs (maybe one lower body session per every 6 or 7 upper) because my upper body was what I felt was lacking...but apparently the benefits in metabolism and <insert science here> are go well beyond the obvious area-specific gains of working the legs.

i think i'll continue weight training every day, but i think that my schedule allows 1-2 days off a week which should be sufficient rest time for muscle repair. If I also intersperse lower body workouts, I shouldnt have a problem at all.


still looking for more science, if anyone has it to offer

2/15/2007 1:33:18 PM