Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimellow
As I transition to free weight lifting, I've come up with a few questions.. I received a lot of great info in my chest exercises thread, and now I've come up with a few general questions I'd appreciate some feedback on. This time I will have enough to warrant a numbered list.
1) Is it a bad idea to variate chest and back, leaving only a day between each? Right now I want to focus on building the strength in my back, and especially, chest. I work my legs via cardio, and am content with where they are. As an example: I will work my chest on Monday, then do back on Tuesday, and chest again on Wednesday, etc.
2) My muscles aren't fatigued to the point where I am unable to work them out every other day. Should they be? On the day I lift, I lift until my muscles are fatigued and I can't do any more reps, literally. Yet I am not experiencing lasting fatigue that prevents me from working the same muscles two days later. Is this a concern, or is my body just recuperating fast enough to allow me to work the muscles without extended breaks?
3) When doing incline bench type activities, what is the ideal angle the bench should be at? The back of the bench has the capability to be adjusted anywhere from nearly flat, to almost vertical. For an incline press, what's the ideal setting?
As I come up with more questions, I'll likely list them here. For today, those are my three main concerns that I'd appreciate feedback on.
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Baraka's got the right advice for you. But just to add my experience:
I lift weights every third day and do cardio in between. It's weird but it's been working for me as of late. Since these days I am not lifting weights as often I am doing full body work outs each time. I thought I'd add here that I am a woman so my workouts are focused more on toning than bulking, cardio has been more useful lately for this.
But what I used to do was lift every other day and then I would switch upper body and lower body. I don't know that there's anything wrong with working your chest and back on opposite days but I think you'll have a better result by working them on the same days. In fact, the best way I've found to work a set of muscles is to do supersets. Basically, do sets of your back exercises in between sets of your chest exercises. This works to keep your heart rate up and if you're working the same muscles at all you'll notice a big difference in those.
As Baraka_Guru noted, if you're working out the same muscles to the point of exhaustion every other day you may be over training. The easiest way to tell is if you are sore, tired or not seeing improvement. My suggestion would be to work both your back and your chest on the same day and do that every other day. See if you notice a difference, I'm guessing you will. Definitely take a week off every couple months also. Also, make sure you're improving, if you're able to do more than 3 sets of 12 reps try more weight your exercises should always be a challenge.
And to address your last question, different angles are going to work the muscles differently. Start with 45 but change it up every once in a while, you'll notice some angles are going to be quite different.