This is the short version of Darrin’s view on muscle recovery time. To read the longer version, click here. To read Jason’s view, click here.
How long do your muscles need to recover between workouts?
That is one of the most important questions for any lifter – whether a newbie or a competitor. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the hardest to answer.
You’ve probably heard 48 hrs. Or maybe you’ve heard 72 hours. Some people even advocate a full week of rest between working each muscle group.
For this article, we are talking about resting particular muscle groups, not about rest between workouts (unless those workouts hit all your muscles).
In general, you probably need more recovery time than you think.
I’ll give you some scientific and empirical evidence as anchor points so that you can evaluate muscle recovery time for yourself.
To make this easier to digest and act on, I’m going to score each recommendation in the rest of this article into three buckets:
a) tend towards a 2-day muscle recovery period
b) tend towards a 3-day muscle recovery period
c) tend towards a full week to rest your muscles
But all of the recommendations I make interact with each other – you can’t look at just one factor and say “ok, the ideal recovery time is X”. Some guidelines may trump others, so the key is to take this knowledge and start applying the ones that you believe will have the biggest impact on your particular situation. And then test.
One final preamble. We’re talking here about force recovery – the time it takes for your muscle strength to return to optimum levels for their next major exertion. It’s a proven fact that after working a muscle intensely, it is actually weaker while it is healing than when you started. It takes days until it is capable of exerting the same (or more) force as before the workout. And since you want to exert maximum force in each workout, this is the recovery time we are working with. So don’t equate soreness with recovery. Whether you are sore or not, is secondary.
The Factors That Influence Recovery Time
There are tons of factors that influence how long you should rest your muscles between workouts. And because there are so many factors, this is a very long article. LeanLifters Members get the full article. Everyone else gets the short version. Here are the factors:
Things You Don’t Control
- Your genetics
- Your age
- Which muscles we are talking about
Things Related To Your Workouts Themselves
- Your experience lifting
- What program/routine you are on
- How intense your workouts are
- What non-lifting exercise you also do
- What you are doing on your “rest days”
Things You Control, But Outside The Weight Room
- Your diet
- Whether you are taking steroids or not (hopefully not)
- Your sleeping
- Your stress levels
- Your mental strength
With all these factors, there’s no way to have a universal rule!
Factors You Can’t Control That Affect Muscle Recovery Time
Let’s start by talking about genetics, age, and different muscle types.
Fiber Types – Genetics
You may have heard about Type I, Type IIa, and Type IIb muscle fibers. Well, we’ll skip the physiology class for now and let’s just call them “fast” and “slow” muscles. Fast muscle fibers are designed for explosive movements. Sprinting. Jumping. Powerlifting heavy weights. Generally, these muscles require more time to recover between workouts (and between sets, but that’s a different topic). The slower muscle fibers are designed for endurance activities – jogging, for example. And they take less time to recover.
We’re all born with a mixture of types. But some people are skewed towards one end of the spectrum or the other. The split can be anywhere from 40% to 60%, vs 60% to 40%. But that 20% swing makes a big difference between whether you’ll be a champion marathoner or an Olympic shotputter.
Keep this in mind when we talk later about routines. But for now, just recognize that your recovery time is impacted by which fibers are used, what your mix of fiber types is, and how trained those fibers are.
Age
The older you are, the longer it takes to recover. It can be more complicated, but let’s leave it at that. How much longer? Well, that depends on your workout. But it’s not like a 50 yr old takes twice as long to recover as a 25 yr old. It’s more like 50% longer.
General guideline: 20 yrs old – tend towards 2 days; 50+ – tend towards a week for a muscle group to fully recover.
Muscle Groups
Arnold used to talk about how his calves and biceps recovered faster than his back and chest. I’ve found this to be true as well but it is related to whether you are doing compound or isolation movements (see next section). And it is related to the fiber type issues above. It appears, in general, that larger muscle groups take longer to recover. But that’s not an absolute rule. Anecdotally, some guys will say that their smaller muscles take longer to recover. Those are the same guys who try to do bench press 3 days a week…
General guideline: smaller muscles – tend towards 2 days; larger muscles – tend towards 3+ days; and then there are the back muscles hit by deadlifts – tend towards once a week.
Factors In Your Workout That Affect Muscle Recovery Time
Your Experience
I just heard Tom Venuto talk about this exact issue and I must agree 100% with him. (Duh, of course I’d agree with him. Have you seen him? Heard him? He’s got to be the smartest bodybuilder I’ve come across with the best physique. Anyway…)
When you are just starting out, full-body workouts every other day are perfect. You hit every muscle group in every workout, or 3x/wk per muscle. That also means each muscle (in fact, your whole body) rests only about 48 hrs.
But the more experienced you are, the more you’ll need extra recovery days. That’s mainly because (presumably) you are learning to be more intense with each workout as you get more experienced.
Pro bodybuilders (especially the few that are all-natural) end up often resting each muscle 6 or 7 days before working it again. That’s why 3-way split routines, with lots of isolation movements, are ok for bodybuilders. But for the mid-experienced lifter, 72 to 96 hrs is usually perfect.
General guideline: just starting out – tend towards 2 days; mid-level experience – tend towards 3 days; very advanced lifters – tend towards letting each muscle recover a full week.
Your Program/Routine
In line with your experience level, you will likely modify your routines over the years. The worst thing any newbie or beginner can do is jump into split routines. You really need a full-body lifting program. That said, I’ll try to step off the soapbox and simply describe the effect that different routines have on recovery time….
If your routine calls for you to isolate particular muscles, then you can lift more frequently. As long as you use different muscles in each workout. For example, if you did legs one day, you could do chest the next day, then back the day after that, then shoulders, then arms, etc. and workout 6 days a week. In practice, that’s very hard to do in a pure isolated fashion. For example, deadlifts use a heck of a lot of your muscle groups! In fact, all of The Big 7 exercises hit multiple muscle groups.
The workaround is to do 2-way or 3-way splits. A 2-way split is usually upper body/lower body. A 3-way split example is legs/upper pushing/upper pulling. Or legs/chest/back. And some people do 4-way splits by adding in either shoulders or arms. (I recommend only 2-way or 3-way splits.)
So, if you are doing a lot of compound movements, or hitting multiple muscle groups in a single workout, then you need more days off for recovery. If you are doing more isolation movements, then your “recovery days” are actually spent working different muscles. Those really aren’t days off, so to speak. The distinction is less about how much time each muscle needs to recover – it’s more about whether those recovery days should be “days off” or not. Make sense?
General guideline: full-body/compound workouts – tend towards “days off” recovery periods; for isolation type workouts, your recovery days are spent working other muscles.
How Intense Your Workouts Are
Forgive my presumption here, but I bet you are not making your workouts as intense as they need to be to see sustained progress. I say this with confidence, because I see it in 99% of the people at every commercial gym I visit. I’ll save the lecture, and stick to the facts: there’s a continuum of intensity and most of us are in the middle. The less intense your workouts, the less recovery time those muscles need. And of course, the more intense, the more recovery needed. [Note that I'm talking about lifting intensity for producing force, not cardio intensity.] Actually you could even do a test to see how intense your workouts really are. If two days later, you can lift the same weight for the same exercise for the same reps, then you most likely weren’t at maximum lifting intensity the previous workout.
Some notable exceptions: 1) newbies; 2) endurance workouts (like metabolic workouts or fat-burn workouts with weights). On both of these cases, you can be intense and still only need a couple days of recovery.
General guideline: extremely intense workouts – tend towards a week recovery for those muscles; if you are just going through the motions with little intensity – tend towards a 2-day recovery (better yet, just make your workouts more intense!).
To read more about muscle recovery time, join LeanLifters and read the full article here.
As I wrap up this shorter version of this article, take a moment to think about what you’ve read. What are you doing right? What are you doing wrong? What advice can you offer fellow lifters? Please make a commitment to post a comment below ok?
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September 15th, 2009 at 12:48 am
Darrin,
You know I’ll have my own opinion, but….
Olympic/power exercises, such as a snatch, use the whole body. What’s your recommended rest time? I usually end up doing them twice a week. (Provided I’m not doing other ppls workouts…)
September 15th, 2009 at 6:40 am
hello,
i’m doing Two times a week, which includes Compound Movements working most of my body muscles. that means i am working my each muscle group twice in a week. for now it is the best for me as opportunity for time.
But i must say that it is quite tiring when you make a hard bench press and an upright row and than a squat at one workout’!
September 15th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
I´m doing deadlift, snatch, squat, full squat and other partial movements to develop power 3 times a week in about 50min. After that i go to agility training for 20min. I rest the other day and go for the gym again. That´s o kfor me and made me already a little bit faster for the 30mts dash that i do as a control once to three times a month. My time is 3s68 and i´m 31 years old, 4th month of training.
September 15th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
@Rod – wow, that seems hard to maintain. Have you been doing that routine 3x a week for all 4 months? You are still a beginner at 4 months (funny, I thought from another comment many weeks ago that you had been lifting for years…) so you will recover a little faster. But at 31, I’m impressed if you can deadlift 3x a week. That said, I might tweak you a little and say that I bet if you next week you only deadlifted 1 day, then the following week I bet you’d be able to increase your reps and/or weight much more. Are you willing to try that?
@Cameron – see Rod’s comment. Apparently he’s able to recover from power-focused moves quickly. Of course, this is all complicated because everyone is different. I’m still relatively new to “power training”, having more experience in bodybuilding and strength training. I’ve definitely seen that power training requires a lot more time in between sets. But between workouts? I would venture to say that it depends on which movement we are talking about. Clean and press, or snatches, for example (where the weight is going from the floor to over your head) use so many muscles that I’d definitely want to take the next day completely off. But does that mean you can’t use your shoulders, biceps, quads, traps, calves, or back in your next workout (since all those muscles are activated)? No, that’s not practical. My traps kill the next day after hang cleans, so I would take several days before working them again but if I was really working on my traps, I could probably do them 2x a week. I think we have several powerlifters who read this – can you guys chime in?
@Nick – if you are doing full-body routines twice a week, that’s probably ideal (unless you are young and/or new to weight training, in which case you could probably move to 3x a week). Even experienced guys can do a 3x/wk full body routine for a while, just not year round.
September 15th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
but then, does not that mean we do not spare enough time for each muscle group when we work them 3 times a week? in that case i will be doing 3 times a week squats or bench presses which may overtrain my body, because full-body workouts are already eventually more tiring than separated ones..
September 15th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
Is my workout ok because I go hard but I do it monday, wednesday, and friday muscle and tuesday thrusday and saturday I want to do cardio but school is just keepin me busy but for now lets focus on the muscle here it is my strenght workout:
Chest First:
Warm-up 1 set of 10 with 15 lbs
Dumbbell bench press with chest flys 10 reps each (90 sec rest, repeat another 2 more times for a total of 3 total sets each.
Then dumbbell press and Bent-Arm Dumbbell Pullover 3 sets 10 reps ea and 90 sec rest between sets
Bicep and tricep workout
Bicep:
3 sets of 8 bicep dumbbell curls (20 lbs)
2 sets of dumbbell arm alternate curls, abt 6 reps each arm but later 10 because I just got the 20s a while ago and its hard for me to do 6 so I push myself to do it.
Isolation curls abt 8 reps each arm (15 lbs)
Tricep:
3 sets of Standing Overhead Dumbbell Triceps Extension
And after all that I do some alternate arm curls abt 6 curls per arm but with a 25 lb because Idk I just feel like I wanna do it lol
September 16th, 2009 at 12:02 am
Due to the change in my schedule, I am going to be needing to spend less time on my workouts (so that I can actually do them instead of either doing a shortened version or not even doing them at all because I have no time).
I’m considering a 2 day per week total body workout. Now if my workout is pretty much going to consist of the Big 7, is that going to be about 2-3 days rest? And also, Darrin, do you think I would be working my body enough? I’m not a beginner (but I’m also not a professional bodybuilder).
September 16th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
What I tried to lay out is the fact there is no single answer to recovery time. There are many cases of “it depends” and I’ve done the research on the variables that affect it. The rest of the variables are in the longer version [here].
@Nick – For beginners, I believe there is no better program than the 3x/wk full body. Recovery should be fine. But for more experienced lifters, or older lifters, or in many other individual cases, you might see that little recovery start to stall progress. I still do a 3x/wk full-body routine for about 3 months of the year but not all year long.
@Shayne – I really advise against any workout that has so much dedicated to arms (unless you are a competition level bodybuilder). Sounds like you would be better off with FullBodyAttack for 3 months. Then think about a more advanced routine.
@Mat – I think that 2x/wk for a full-body routine is usually fine, though it depends on your goals. It’s most likely plenty of recovery time. Certainly following a good 2x/wk fullbody routine is 10 times better than half-way following a more advanced routine.
September 16th, 2009 at 11:46 pm
@ Darrin- yes i practice weight training since i was 11 years old.The old fashion training for mass…youth huh… this routine is what i´ve been doing for 4 months now. Last year i stopped training in october and returned april this year; 7 months doing absolutely nothing, just eating junk food and watching tv. May this year i begun with the old 3 sets of 10 reps, 90sec max of rest and so on. In may is started with strenght and those exercises above with only 60sec rest between sets. Of course there were days that i skiped training, 1 week lighter than normal or totally off due to rainy or cold weather. and agility i started in late july. but the rest periods are kept in 60sec no matter what. Now i´m deadlifting 110kg for 3 sets of 4 reps with 60sec rest, full frontal squat with 60kg for 6 reps and 60sec rest, snatch with 40kg for 8 reps and 3 sets with 60sec rest. upper body i do one arm row with 50kg barbell for the same numbers in sets, reps and rest, pull ups, abs and then agility. That works for me and in about 2 weeks i´ll slow down to rest and then try to hit hard again.
September 17th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
A very good article, and a very necessary one too. You clearly know what you are talking about, and you do not presume to know ALL. Personally, I train as follows: Day1, Back & Biceps; Day2, Legs; Day3, Chest, Shoulders & Triceps. However, after exercising my chest, I find that my shoulders have been pumped-up quite dramatically, and that my triceps have also been worked quite well. So, although it would seem practical to work Chest, Shoulder & Triceps together, I am in two minds whether the shoulders & Triceps should be worked on the same day as Chest.
As for recovery: I aim for quick results, but am aware of the absolutely necessary for recovery time. I am 53yrs of age, and have practiced heavy-weight training since 21yrs of age (on & off). I also did some weight-training at school. Since starting again in July 2009, I have been surprised that I have loads of energy, and can do more sets than years before. I have very intense workouts, and am always pleased with my sesions.
However, two difficulties:-
1. It is said that, when working the chest with bench exercises, your shoulders & triceps are also worked quite hard, and so, the shoulders & triceps should be exercised seperately on the same day. And it is said that, as the shoulders & triceps have already been hit by the chest exercises; although the muscles are weaker, and you may not be able to exercise them so hard after the chest, that you can get better results for the shoulders & triceps. I am not conviced as, it is not easy to get a pump on these muscle-groups after the chest, and sometimes the shoulders & triceps, simply don’t want to work after the chest exercises. Yet it might seem silly not to finish working the shoulders & triceps on the chest day.
2. I am keen on isolation exercises, and like to feel the muscles ache. And so, am not averse to isolating these muscles as much as possible, and training them as hard as possible. Yet, this means training each muscle group once a week, with 2 days rest mixed in.
I have no trouble with doing the exercises strictly, or with the intensity. I am not so sure about only exercising each muscle group once a week, even if the workouts are at maximum intensity. And, as said before, I am not sure about training shoulders & triceps with chest.
You have said that men in their 50′s need 50% more recovery time ?), so you might say go with the intense training and train each muscle group once a week. And, you may say that, since I have not been back in the gym for long that I should go for the less intense training schedule.
It’s all ‘Swings & Roundabout’s). I guess I’ll have to work it out by ‘trial & error’.
Your articles have made me think more deeply about the two difficulties I face, so thank-you for that.
September 18th, 2009 at 9:07 am
@ Mike – thanks for the compliments. Although a bit off topic, I never think of “training triceps”. I try my best to train movements rather than smaller muscles unless there is a particular shortcoming (like calves for me and many people). So triceps get worked with pushing movements. It also depends on what you consider “shoulders”. Read this.
As to your isolations and your “is once a week enough” question, here’s my take:
- if you do intense isolations, do them AFTER your compound movements
- I don’t see any reason to go to the gym and not work as intensely as possible; only exception is the first month of working out; I’ve never been a fan of “light days” except to the extent that super-light days are really just active recovery
- if you are focusing on very specific muscle groups, and isolations, and thus you are really destroying each muscle, then once a week is probably plenty; the two all-natural bodybuilders I follow most closely are Skip LaCour and Tom Venuto – both are usually on a once a week per muscle group routine
- of course, Tom and Skip are far advanced; I’d still suggest that for beginners, a full-body is best and for intermediates to lower-advanced then a semi-split is best; only very advanced should be thinking about strict splits
- and unless you are truly considering yourself a “bodybuilder” I would not do strict isolation splits for more than a few weeks a year no matter how advanced you are; most of us just want to look really good, feel really good, and be able to do cool things (like play sports, lift furniture, etc.) so compound movements rule
September 18th, 2009 at 11:44 pm
Darrin,
I am writing in response to Cameron’s question about recovery from a power lifting type training session. While it is true you use several muscle groups for movements such as the snatch, power cleans or deadlifts (not to mention squats) or even shrugs, it basically all boils down to how intense your training is.
Lets say for example you’re deadlifts are done moderately heavy and you’ve been training for about a year, I’d say wait at least 6 days before doing deads again (especially if lifting heavy enough to limit yourself to no more than 4 – 5 reps; anything below 4 reps I’d say at least 10 days).
If you do deadlifts heavy enough and strict enough you should feel it in your forearms, biceps, rear delts, traps, lats, lumbar supports, and numerous other assister groups in your upper back (and especially the hamstrings if you are doing Romanian style deadlifts or more in the glutes with a Sumo style lift).
Of course if you are training this intensly it would be a good idea to back off at least every other week to avoid injury or overtraining.
September 19th, 2009 at 5:46 am
Hi Darrin,
I found your article on muscle recovery time extremely interesting. I’m a 56 year old male who’s been working out at a commercial gym for just over a year. I first started working out 16 years ago and this lasted for about 6 months. I restarted work outs sporadically over the years never lasting for more than 6 months or so. This last time has been the longest, as I mentioned above just over a year. I started off doing the super circuit (all machines)twice a week and cardio (either treadmill, swimming, eliptical, steps or stationary cycle)also twice a week on alternate days to the circuit. This I did for 3 months and then went on to doing strength training, mostly machines, three times a week for about a month until I purchased a book entitled “Strength Training Past 50″ by Wayne L Westcott and Thomas R Baechle. After assessing my current strength according to their guidelines I started on the Advanced Training Program doing the full body free weight workout once a week and the machine full body workout also once a week i.e. 2 workouts per week. I noticed significant gains in both strength and muscle size until I hit a plateau. I have now changed to doing just free weights and doing less exercises with greater intensity. Concentrating on the Big 7 and working out twice a week i.e. Mondays and Thursdays giving me 2 days and 3 days rest between workouts. I’ve only been doing this for 2 weeks now so haven’t yet seen how this is working. What do you think and recommend for someone like me who is over 55 years of age?
September 20th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
@ Ron – thanks for adding that!
@ Peter – it all depends on your goals and intensity. Two days a week, full-body, high intensity is definitely enough for muscle growth even at your age. And the 2 or 3 days of recovery is great. The problem is few people really lift at high intensely. We all think we are working hard, but the ultimate intensity is going beyond what you think you can do, yet staying safe. It’s hard to know where that line is but invariably the line is farther out than you think. But if your goal is to just maintain, then 2x/wk full-body is probably enough even with just good intensity (not even max). However, age again rears its head because the older you get the more intensity you need even to maintain your muscle mass. Young kids can essentially just look at pictures of a barbell and start adding muscle (that’s a joke, people). But older guys need to work really hard. The older you are, the more intensity you need AND the more recovery you need.
September 29th, 2009 at 6:30 am
I have been doing body building for 2 months now and am noticing huge differences in muscle tone and strength. Apparently rest and nutrition make up for 80% of muscle growth after hitting the gym recommended by my personal trainer.. so diet is as important as rest
we work a different muscle group 5 days a week doing 4 sets @ 12,10,8,8 …like this….. 12 reps (light Heavy), 10 reps (heavy) 8 (heaviest you can manage) 8 (heavier then you have done before). we never do more then 5 different exercises on the same muscle group in one session as this can be counter productive…. we work our abs everyday as this muscle recovers quickly… i do 200 reps each day on abs. (25,25 -25,25 Break, 25,25,- 25,25)…. we have 2 days complete rest with excessive eating… we look to increase the amount of weight we lift each week even if only by a few pounds… but as i say 2 days off complete rest… this seems to be working well for us.. i recommend to anyone anyone else.. any questions just ask i let you know on our program… in 2 months we have put on 1 stone of muscle mass. im a little bit of body fat too although we will cut that in the later stages maybe towards march.
January 22nd, 2010 at 7:06 pm
I work out just 2 times per week. Mondays I do upper body using dumbbell bench press, dumbbell rows, dips and pulldowns. That’s it. 3-5 sets each. On Fridays I do dumbbell squats, leg presses and curls. I should perhaps do curls on Mondays, but I find my arms are fried after the rows and pulldowns. My workouts are never longer than 45 minutes, but I go to near failure very set. I’m 65 by the way. What I notice most in the gym is a) people spend way too much time on the weights. People that are hard at it when I arrive are still hard at it when I leave and b)people spend far too much time on curls. What is it with curls that people feel they have to do a dozen or more sets. I see people doing standing dumbbell curls, followed by seated concentration curls, followed by standing barbell curls followed by preacher curls. I`ve seen people doing nothing but curls in the time I`ve completed my entire workout. I`ll do maybe 3 sets of either dumbbell or barbell curls followed by a couple of sets of either hammer or reverse curls. Five sets max.
January 31st, 2010 at 8:31 am
Darrin- a quick question please; if I train chest and biceps like I did last night is it ok to to do back and triceps tonight or is it not possible to work the triceps out without also working my biceps to the point that recovery is prevented?
Thanks in advance, yahya.
February 1st, 2010 at 7:12 am
@yahya – my advice, is twofold:
a) don’t “train arms”; see this: http://worldfitnessnetwork.com.....ple-steps/
b) if you ignore me anyway, then do biceps on your back days and triceps on your chest days; do arms AFTER all your real lifts are done
February 1st, 2010 at 8:34 pm
thanks Darrin, I’ll try that and see what works and fits best, thanks again!
May 13th, 2010 at 5:04 pm
Hey Darrin!
I’m doing
Chest/Tri’s(Monday&Thursday)
Back/Bi’s (Tuesday&Friday)
Legs/Shoulders(Wednesday&Saturday)
I’m 20 years old and i’ve been doing this routine for several months. I’m taking NO-shotgun and Synthesize and I feel like I generally get enough recovery in before the next time i work out a given muscle group. I’m just wondering if this is detrimental and if I should instead work out each muscle group only once a week.
Thanks Darrin!
-zack
May 13th, 2010 at 7:41 pm
@Zack – no, you don’t need to move to once a week per muscle group. Because you are young, you’ll likely recover quickly. If you were in your 40s, I’d say you should do shoulders on your back/chest days (front and side delts with chest, rear delts and traps with chest). Here’s the magic questions: are you making progress every week? do you look forward to each workout? are you able to be fully intense each workout? If the answer to all these is yes, then you are probably well recovered.
May 21st, 2010 at 10:20 am
Unfortunately I wrote a comment on Jason’s article before I read your more complete coverage. However my comment is basically the same.
I am 65 years old and have weight trained semi-seriously including a couple of short stops for 50 years, this did not include serious body building or hulk training. I did have the opportunity to meet Arnold in Austria and the California crazies from the early 60′s through the early 70′s. I was particularly impressed by Sergio Olivia (spelling ??)
Your article is perhaps most of note for emphasizing the intensity factor. But this (in my experience) relates to a very small percentage of people who think they are weight training (including myself).
So my comments are really addressed to more normal weight training.
First, maintenance or slow growth training (perhaps typical of Jack Lalanne) 4 or 5 sets of 10 reps, three times a week seems fine.
Second, for 3 (or fewer) sets of 6 or 8 reps with heavy weights for a growth program twice a week should be ok until you get to the point of being one of the 5 strongest or biggest guys in the gym, then you need to be careful. One or Arnold’s comments was that you could ruin a big arm easier than a beginners arm.
Third, most young guys change level too quickly, even Sergio told me that except in intense periods, he stayed at the same weight for 20 to 25 workouts – and following this, I have never suffered workout related injuries.
On my two off days (not including Sunday), I do 250 watt exercycling for 1/2 hour one day and a serious hilly bike ride the other day.
The deep breathing seems to be good for recovery.
Obviously electrolytes/ sugars / proteins etc. must be carefully maintained, most mountain climbing accidents occur in the afternoon when the electrolytes are low and bad decisions come easier.
Unfortunately I am perhaps a victim of my experience, any comments?
May 21st, 2010 at 6:11 pm
@Quijas – well, you have far more experience than I do, so I can’t presume to correct anything in your comment! But I do think that it varies. More advanced lifters are going to find it harder to safely increase poundage frequently. Generally, I advise people to try to beat SOMETHING each workout compared to the previous. Not on every exercise of course. Just one thing so that after each workout you can point to one area you improved. One more rep, 5 more pounds, better form, etc. I recently wrote about the rule of 3% (http://worldfitnessnetwork.com.....e-problem/) – but I didn’t really talk about the “when”. It would not surprise me, for serious, long-term lifters, if you would see ~20 workouts before you would be ready to increase by a tiny amount (like 3%). Beginners CAN progress faster, but that doesn’t mean they should. Like you said, too many of us want it all immediately.
On a related note, I was surprised not many people commented on my article about intensity. I’d love to get your take on that Quijas : http://worldfitnessnetwork.com.....r-failure/ .
May 23rd, 2010 at 2:06 am
@ Darrin
Thanks Darrin! I definitely look forward to each workout but sometimes, when I’m doing incline and sometimes decline, I feel like my shoulders are strained. I warm them up before each work out and stretch throughout the workout, but they still feel almost injured. They’re fine the next day: am I maybe just hitting the wrong angle or using bad form?
Thanks for reading and responding!
-zack
June 6th, 2010 at 10:01 am
Hi Darrin! I’m 15 years old and I workout 2-3 times a week. I believe my workout’s not “intense” cuz Im not getting results. (I’m just using 5 lb-dumbbells each hand) And since twas not intense I decided to do it daily for 45 mins. each day. I’ve watched several workout videos using just the bodyweight and workouts requiring minimal equipments. And I have put together the workouts that worked best, as many people say, to lose body fat, and gain muscle. Here’s the workout I’m gonna do starting tomorrow:
WARM-UP CIRCUIT:
Jog (for 1 min.)
Squat – 12 reps
Rest for 30 secs. between circuits and repeat once
SUPERSET A:
Tricep Kickbacks – 8 reps each side (no dumbbell plates; only the bar cuz I cant do it with it :))
Kneeling push-up – 8 reps (the only type of push-up I can do :))
Rest for 30 secs. between supersets. I do the superset for 3 times.
SUPERSET B:
Deep-knee squats – 12 reps
DB Deltoid Raise – 10 reps (w/o plates if I cant do it for 5 reps with it)
– 5 reps (w/ 10 pound dumbbells)
Rest for 30 secs. between supersets. I do the superset for 3 times.
SUPERSET C:
Split Squat – 6-8 reps per side
The Row – 8 reps (using 10 lb dumbbells)
Rest for 30 secs. between supersets. I do the superset for 3 times.
SUPERSET D:
DB Chest Press – 8 reps (10 lb dumbbells)
1-leg Romanian Deadlifts – 30 secs. per side (w/o dumbbells)
Rest for 30 secs. between supersets. I do the superset for 3 times.
Then Ab Planks for 3 times (w/ 30 sec. rest in between) after the last 30 sec. rest of the last superset.
Then I do stretches for the tight muscle groups.
Darrin, please tell me if there’s something wrong about my workout and if it’s okay to do it daily. As u can see I only use 10 lb dumbbells.. only because it’s the only weights we have at home. DB plates are a bit pricey and I’m not rich u see… and have no time to go to gym cuz its too far from here and I’m quite busy to go there.
I really need to lose fat. Look lean and a bit muscular. I want to transform my body… please help me Darrin. Thanks in advance!
June 6th, 2010 at 2:33 pm
@Hi Its Me
Even though you are using light weights, it sounds like you are still doing rep schemes designed for muscle growth. And it sounds like you haven’t yet gained enough strength to warrant higher weights. So, I don’t want you or me to be misled into thinking you are doing light weight. It doesn’t seem like it is like to you and that’s what matters.
If you are lifting weight that is heavy enough that you can only get 8 or so reps per set (and that might mean bodyweight), then you are essentially doing a muscle building workout. And as such, I would take a day off in between. You can jog or something on the days off as long as it is “easy”.
Now, in your last sentence you say you want to burn fat. If that’s more important to you right now than gaining muscle, then I would say your current workout is not ideal. I would probably REDUCE the weight so that you can get 12 to 15 reps per set. Keep the rest periods short.
And if you are doing high-rep, short rest type of resistance training, then you CAN do it every day, but I wouldn’t. I would do it two days, then 1 day off, then 2 days on, then 1 day off, etc.
Hope this helps!
June 6th, 2010 at 2:36 pm
Oh, and one more thing – you really do need to gain some strength. Fat loss might help your visual appearance but your strength levels are really low and to be healthy you need to get stronger. an idea protocol would alternate fat-loss type of metabolic training with strength training but I think that might be too complicated for you right now. In a couple months we can talk about how to add strength training.
June 9th, 2010 at 10:54 am
Thanks Darrin… Now I know ^_^… and one more question… Is it okay to workout first thing in the morning, with an empty stomach? Im confused. Some people say, you can burn more fat if ur gonna do it while some people say you first need to eat light carbs and protein an hour before workout. Please let me know. Thanks…
June 9th, 2010 at 1:46 pm
Yes it’s ok, but there is conflicting science on it and it seems to come down to the individual. My recommendations is that for beginners, never lift fasted. After you are more experienced, you can experiment and see if it is right for you. Also see
http://worldfitnessnetwork.com.....ding-gain/
and
http://worldfitnessnetwork.com.....-fat-loss/
June 10th, 2010 at 5:37 am
Okay… thanks again :)