By Although I’m a big believer in doing some form of physical activity on a daily basis – for the sake of our health and wellbeing, I’m not a big advocate of strength training on a daily basis.
There are most certainly a number of health and body composition benefits of weight training, and I’m all for putting the heavy lifting above and beyond anything else you can do, in the form of exercising. Lifting weights transforms your body shape, burns body fat, builds muscle mass, strength and stamina on all levels. Let’s not forget it’s great for strengthening bones, helps control depression, diabetes and increases your quality of life. A lot of people build their own inner and outer self-confidence as a result of lifting weights.
What happens to our bodies when we lift weights?
To build muscle mass, it’s necessary to lift weights 3–4 times per week, pivoting between a couple of programming systems called intensification and accumulation. That means, we train with the intention of lifting as heavy as possible, and then we train with moderate weights, lifting less but doing a lot more repetitions. This allows for a lot more symmetry within the body and prevents structural imbalances.
There are a few things to consider when contemplating lifting every single day. One of them is that muscles do not get stronger when you’re lifting those weights. They actually increase in strength during your rest periods – this is the process known as protein synthesis, which is stimulated by the work you do in the gym.
Lifting weights produces trauma in your muscles, therefore, they need a rest period between your workouts to allow protein synthesis to occur, rebuild and repair the damage. This means bigger and stronger muscles as a result (hypertrophy)
With this information in mind, it’s best to allow rest days in-between lifting. You can use the famous protocol of many body builders who perform 3 days of back to back training (splitting muscle groups) then allowing 1–2 rest days for the repair and rebuilding stage. Or you can allow for 2 days straight, and one day off. The choice is yours. Do experiment to see which one works best for you.
DOMS and the soreness factor
Another thing to consider when lifting weights, is that we will go through a period of having sore muscles. When we work out with sore muscles, we leave ourselves open to injury. Lifting when sore is counterproductive, and you should allow for the necessary amino acids within your diet, as well as rest periods. Good nutrition and supplementation should help with this factor – but nothing beats just resting through it. Usually a 12–14-hour period is sufficient enough.
I highly recommend splitting body parts every week, so that you can allow for recovery of one set of muscles, whilst getting in the gym and working another. That means, leg day on day one of training, then day two we perform upper body work and so forth. You can even go into further detail and split biceps and triceps from back and shoulders – which is a lot more effective.
Hopefully this has been helpful in your quest towards lifting weights more efficiently but without having to resort to everyday training. Remember that muscles need time to recuperate in order to develop strength and increase in size. Use the 3 days on one day off method for the best results, only if you are performing splitting your body parts. If you appreciate this, why not stick with my ranting via my website or join me on fb and insta social. Please feel free to upvote this answer if it has been useful in some way to you.
Work out effectively, affordably and flexibly with an online coach
Get your custom-made training and nutrition program integrated with Intermittent fasting.
Fast track your results now! click below:
