Muscle Recovery

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benelson101

0
Hey all.

Is it better to work a muscle group once or twice per week? i usually do the same workout on Monday and Wednesday + Tuesday and Friday. I always feel like im cramming in the workouts, spending 2 to 2 1/2 hours in the gym.

what do we think?
 
If you feel comfortable with that than I guess keep it up. I think it is pretty rare that someone can get consistant good results with that routine especailly if you are double training large muscle groups. I would try to experiment with doing a workout only one time a week. The recovery is what brings progress and muscles work better when they are fresh.
I double train my legs but I do it on day two and day six and train my legs in very different ways.
I would reccommend looking in a bodybuilding mag and seeing what the pros do. not that you have to match them, but just to see how their splits work. your split is certainly unusual but again I do not want to discourage you if you are sure that you are doing things right.
 
im not sure at all!

so far im reasonably happy with the results, but that doesnt mean i wouldnt be more happy with better results with more rest!
 
A wise man once said train for no longer than 1 hour at a time, and train each body part only once per week. this ensures you are not over training. after about an hour or so your body starts feeding off other muscles to give the ones you are working out more energy to get the job done. I would say cut back to only an hour or so of lifting at the gym, and get a better split.. Not saying what your doing is all wrong, it is certainly a great way to break out of a plateau when one is hit. Try to grab the basic building moves and make sure to get them in the routine (Bench, Squat, Deadlift, Overhead Press) Then add a few burnout exercises around these to target all the surrounding muscles. 2 1/2 hours is just wayy too long. I would say esp if you are training the same muscle group 2 times per week because your not giving the muscles enough time to recover from such a long workout.

Cut back on rest periods in between sets to shorten up time too.
 
2 - 2.5 hours in the gym!!!! That sounds like a hell of a lot. I usually go 4 or 5 times a week and only really stay for 40 minutes at a time. I split my program into chest/triceps and shoulders/back/biceps and I alternate between these. This means that every now and then I end up doing some muscle groups up to 3 times during the week and haven't had any problems with this. 2 - 2.5 hours in the gym - I would have to give up poker!!!!
 
It is a myth that you need to use every peice of equipment in the gym. Batista on WWE trains 3 sets of 10-12 on four exercises. I used to train 3+ hours a day and stayed still for years. I got so depressed because people who did not know how to lift or diet and never did cardio were getting far better results. the first time I started to tone it down was when I took the Body for Life Challenge (you can look it up) the workouts were about a quarter of what I was used to but I had great energy and yeided great results. I am still trying to find new ways to get every one of my workouts to under an hour (especially leg day) but I am getting better. Remember that you do not need to be pooped by the end. You have proved to everyone that you can go the distance and one day you will look back on that fondly and wonder how you ever did it. As far as getting results you should probably tone it down. Some people need to train that much to get results but for most of us that much training just gets in the way of progress.

Try small workouts throughout the day. I like to do three minutes when I wake and three minutes before bed and and hour in the middle of the day. I also train a lot of freinds so I do a light workout with them for twenty minutes most days. As small and insignifficant as it sounds it stimulates the muscles and gives me energy. It has a profoundly positive effect.

In closeing to this long post considder what would happen if you lightened your load for two monthes. Just twelve sets a day 20 min of cardio every other day. Your muscles will not fall off, you will not get fat. It is still far more exercise than average joe, and if in the end you still do not like it you can jump right into your monster workouts again or just bring yourself up a little. It won't kill you.
Does that sound acceptable?
 
in the beginning, hitting a muscle once a week may be fine for most. but as you improve, look into increasing your work capacity and working the muscles more frequently. mark rippetoe has his trainees squatting 3x a week and they grow like crazy. glenn pendlay, chad waterbury, mike mahler, etc all stress more frequency.
 
Muscle recovery has been a hot issue on these forums lately. I find myself bouceing between the two extremes a lot because I think that it is great to understand both. The body will do whatever it is accustomed to. If you teach your body to run 7 days a week than it will do what it is told and you will have success as far as running goes. This probably goes for just about any exercise. But doing a routine six days (or three or possibly two times) a week is not six times better than doing it once (or three or possibly two times). What is more, jumping into these extreme routines will probably have a negative effect. I have probably done every kind of routine 7 days a week for monthes at a time at one era or another and I gotta aggree with the mainstream- cycleing bodyparts carefully works best. Recovery is where it is at, when it comes to transforming your body.

One thing that the above training is great for though is skill. If you teach your body to run 7 days a week or wrestle seven days a week- your body will certainly gain an affinity for that. That doesn't mean it is the best way to build speed or strength but it sure helps the guys in prison do push ups
 
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