RemyLebeau97

Ok I have a question, I go to the gym and work out 5 times a week. Everyday that I go I do full body workouts, Arms, Chest, stomach, legs, back, neck, just the whole 9. I was wondering if I should continue doing them like this or if I should break down my workouts and exercise different muscles on different days. The only reason I do the full body workouts is because I don't want my muscles to weaken in between workouts. But I was just wondering what is the best thing to do. Any suggestions or workout schedules would be greatly appreciated, Thanks

ashdrgn

Personally I work one part of the body per day for an hour...say chest on monday, back on tues, legs on wed and so on. If you don't let you muscles heal completely you'll never be making the gains you want. So through working out a certain group once a week it allows you the time to train that muscle group and let it heal. Don't worry about your muscles weakening over a week - it won't happen unless you not eating.

Antagony

RemyLebeau97:
Your current method of working out is strongly not advised according to everything I have ever read about exercising.

That's a serious injury just waiting to happen.

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Conclamo Ludus

For me MWF I do situps and pushups
Thursday & Tuesday - Full body workout. It seems to keep me somewhat fit.

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prairefire55

i sorta do a full body workout. i have to follow my football strenght training program. i lift mwf and do lower and upper body everytime i lift. every t, th, and sat i'm supposed to do sprints and agility work, i need to get motivated to run every day

Spektr

I lift Monday, Wednesday, Friday and run or play tennis Tuesday and Thursday. I alternate my lifting patterns (Chest, Triceps, Shoulders) and (Legs, Biceps, Back, Forearms), and I do Abs every time I lift. You should NEVER work the same muscles two days in a row, it's bad for development and coordination. I take whey protein shakes after every workout and one before I go to bed, and I take a multi-vitamin every day. The results are great.

rogue49

I think you are overdoing it.
You should allow your muscles to recover.
Otherwise you're defeating the results you are looking for.
You will get better results twice as fast,
and less of a risk of injury if you at least alternate between muscle groups.

MacGnG

supposed to alternate top/bottom or how ever you want but not the full work out everyday, not enough time for your body to recover over night.

-=BT=-

Yep, you're supposed to leave about 48 hours for your muscles to heal, otherwise they won't be able to build back better (presuming that's what you want). In fact, it has been proven that working out everyday can actually weaken your muscles over time.

I work out every OTHER day for about an hour each time. I eat carbohydrate based food for lunch the day I go in, and protein based food afterwards (you need plenty protein for your muscles).

It's worked for me anyway, I've managed to put on a stone of muscle since I started.

PS. I just remember the other reason why it's bad to workout every day - apparently it can damage your joints and bones over time (particularly with cardiovascular workouts)... and you definately don't want that.

bigoldalphamale

stop what you are doing. get with a physical trainer or buy some fitness mags. you only have one body...do some research before you destroy it.

Darkblack

I have to agree with everyone here. This also goes for stretching. If you build muscle or stretch it one day, you need to give it a day to heal up and reform some of the fiber you damgaged durring your work out. I do stretching and lifting every other day and work cardio on the off days.

mistic84

Well, your muscles need time to recover from the workout. And I believe your supposed to work out muscle groups separately.

N14_PULSAR

sorry to say champ youve got it all wrong

start incorporating a 3-4 day split

chest and triceps 1 day

forearms biceps + back 1 day

quads and calves 1 day

shoulders + traps 1 day

concentrate slow controlled movements, eat well lots of protein low amounts of satured fat

your muscles need time to recover, with a proper split you spend less time in the gym and dedicate more time and concentration and one body part

dont forget to incorporate cardio with warmups of 5mins before each workout and 16-20 mins 2-4 days a week try on your days off

ask your gym instructor to create a basic program for you to follow and instructions on any machine / exercise you feel uncertain with

www.bodybuilding.com is a great resource for any program or workouts or exercises concerning general fitness, i reccomend it to anyone the people on the forums are also quite mature and helpful !!

HoratioSandoval

Ouch! How long have you been doing this? I mean, are you making any sort of progress at all? I'd say before you make any changes to your workout routine, take at least a week off!!!

Leviathan[NCV]

That's gotta hurt, slow it down. You only actually want to give your legs a heavy workout every 6 days (I'm late) and other muscle groups three days of rest in order to let them grow.

JohnnyRock

Remember the old adage that your muscles grow out of the gym...rest and proper nutrition are keys. If you work a bodypart too often [and that varies for people] you will continually break it down and not let it repair and grow.

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Loup

I'm agreeing with the rest of the board, 5 times a week full body is way too much. Split up your routine and include rest and cardio days for overall best fitness.

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Sleepyjack

is it alright to do some light weights on the days off, inbetween larger weights?

ie i usually lift heavier weights every 2-3 days, but always do some lighter weights (like 2-3 kgs) of mainly cardio stuff, for more repetitions and faster contractions as well. Is this bad?

i think i read somewhere that its good to do lighter weights on the off days as it helps the muslce rebuilding process.. although this could be completely wrong, i dunno.

i've been on a plateau for about 3 months now, but it doens't bother me too much, cause i am an ideal size, so i don't wann get too much bigger. plus i don't have any heavier weights at home anyways. i mainly working on my jumping, acceleration and power atm.

rogue49

I would personally rest a day inbetween,
maybe use those days to do some stretching and light cardio.

You should have at least one day a week where you do nothing,
just rest.

coilz

Yeah.. or just play some sports on the day you're not working out. Go shoot some hoops or something..

stinkynutz

n14_pulsar has it 100% correct

troit

When lifting to build muscle you should allow the body part(s) that you exercised 72 hours to rebuild. This means that body
part(s) you exercise on Monday, you should not lift heavy with them again until Thursday. So on and so fourth.

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bradler

uh oh...
Every single day at 11:00 p.m., I always do a full body workout. I max myself until I cant lift a cup of water without spilling it. I've been doing for about 2 years now...

axolotls

There is one absolute factor in these workouts y'all are talking about.

The younger you are and depending on your metabolism etc.. You can get full benefits and mass from full workouts everyday.

As you get older, your recuperation time is lengthened. At this point you'll notice that it takes more than 24 hours to recover and you adjust your schedule accordingly.

As time goes on, it will take 36 hours to recuperate.

And so on... and so on.. and so on...

If you fail to recognize this, you'll most likely end up with an injury or frequent muscle sprains.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is 55 years old and even he admits that the older you get, the slower your metabolism is -and- your recovery time is a lot longer than before.

Sun Tzu

It depends on what your goals are. I was enrolled in Basic Underwater Demoltion School in 96 we did pushups, dips, pullups everyday (not the weekends) not to mention running 9 miles a day just to go eat our meals. I wont even go into the conditoning runs--thats what sucked the worst to me.

It built a different kind of strength, an edurance strength. Training like that also tore my body down and turned me into what is known as a broke dick.

Theres better ways to train for endurance as well.

If your taking steroids that changes allot. Is there any particular reason your working out that much?

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cliche

Rest is a really important part of exercise. Basically by exercising you knock yourself down, then use the rest period to build yourself back up to above where you started.
No rest: you just keep knocking yourself downwards...

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axolotls

My post was referring specifically for mass and strength training.

I do abs and "muscle warming" every day.