It is generally accepted that for effective muscle growth it is important not only to load, but also to properly restore the body, because muscle growth occurs precisely during rest. Yes, indeed, most often the training scheme looks like this: after the training day, a recovery phase begins, and its duration can reach several days. However, despite this theory, which most athletes adhere to, there are other training regimens that will allow you to train frequently. Let's take a closer look at whether it is possible and what will happen if you train every day.
Is it possible to train every day?
Most teams in American football, soccer, hockey and other team sports adhere to five or even six-day training regimens. Here's a great example of a five-day training week for an American football team:
- Monday – training on the field (game).
- Tuesday – strength training in the gym.
- Wednesday – training on the field (impact practice, full contact).
- Thursday - rest.
- Friday – training on the field (game).
- Saturday – training on the field (punching practice, full contact).
- Sunday is rest.
Of course, such a pace cannot be constant and such a training scheme is chosen exclusively for players who have reached a high level and exclusively during the period of preparation for competitions. In the off-season, such loads lead to nothing.
By the way, in bodybuilding, you can also train often – 5-6 times a week. This kind of training is used by professional athletes or those who have stopped growing and need to increase the load on each muscle group, but at the same time not overload the body with long, grueling and debilitating workouts. In bodybuilding, this scheme is called training for one muscle group.
As you can see, even professional athletes do not perform strength training every day; in order to achieve good results, they need to rest for 1-2 days. Only high-quality recovery ensures the athlete’s growth above himself.
However, this method is not suitable for everyone. First of all, this scheme allows you to heavily load a specific muscle group. For example, the pectoral muscles, which is absolutely of no use to beginners, since at the beginning of the training journey, intense training will lead to severe soreness, overtraining and exhaustion.
If, with a normal training regimen, say, three to four workouts per week, two muscle groups can be combined in one day. For example, the antagonist muscles are the pectoral and back muscles; after such a workout you need to take a break of several days, and there will be no more than four exercises for each muscle group. But a workout designed for one muscle group can consist of six or even eight exercises. As an example, let's take back muscle training , which will consist of exercises such as:
- Wide grip pull-ups on the bar.
- Pull-ups on the bar with a reverse grip.
- Pull the block behind the head with a wide grip.
- T-bar row (or on a machine) with a horizontal grip.
- Horizontal rows to the waist in a block machine.
- Hyperextension.
Read more about all types of pull-ups →
What the pros say
All trainers advise monitoring your blood pressure and heart rate. The heart rate should not exceed 220 minus the athlete’s age, or the load will have to be reduced.
Anna Dolgikh, personal trainer, certified specialist in physical fitness and rehabilitation
This specialist believes that in order to lose weight, it is not enough to just go to the gym regularly. A necessary component is proper sleep. As well as proper nutrition with fewer calories.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, world's leading bodybuilder
He recommends following a specific pattern per week to target all muscle groups. For example, on Monday - chest, on Tuesday - back, on Thursday - legs, on Friday - shoulders. On Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday - rest.
For 7 days, only one large muscle is worked out, and then it recovers throughout the week. The load on the muscles should be maximum, but you must maintain balance and not overexert yourself.
Elena Vasilyeva, fitness model from Stary Oskol, winner of the open championship of the South of Russia in bodybuilding and fitness
This specialist believes that it is better to start playing sports from early childhood. But even if we don’t talk about sports, we should devote time to outdoor games every day. Play tennis, badminton, football. This can be done daily. Or just a one-hour walk is also good for losing weight and improving your health.
Exercising with cardio and strength exercises two to three times a week is sufficient.
It is important to do the exercises correctly. This is more important than the number of repetitions.
Working out every day: pros and cons
Training every day is a good option for those who have stopped making progress. Typically, athletes who have reached a certain level follow this regimen. Many professional bodybuilders adhere to this scheme, but not all the time, but only in the pre-competition season. In other periods, enough time is devoted to recovery and, at a certain point, even light training. Professional athletes of team sports also divide the training process throughout the week, since it is not possible to fully train three to four times a week.
Daily sports training
Is it possible to exercise every day to lose weight? This is a pressing question for beginners in the matter of physical education. Doctors and trainers answer it negatively. There is a scientific explanation for this answer.
The human body is a complex and cunning mechanism. Its main goal is to preserve life. Therefore, any surge in load causes stress. A stressful situation is beneficial for losing weight. Thanks to it, mechanisms are launched that affect rapid metabolism. However, prolonged exposure to emotional stress should not be allowed.
Workouts for weight loss
All this applies to sports activities. Heavy loads for an overweight man or girl immediately affect unprepared joints and the myocardium (the largest muscle of the cardiac system). If you don't give your body a rest, your internal organs will work at maximum capacity. In this case, classes will not be beneficial. A person will not lose weight, but will undermine his health. Therefore, unprepared people are prohibited from playing sports every day. Only professional athletes allow themselves to exercise 6-7 days a week. Their body has endurance and recovers quickly.
Additional Information. Another explanation for the fact that a daily sports regime is detrimental for ordinary women and men lies in the central nervous system. She takes on the entire emotional side of the issue. If you thoughtlessly start training constantly, exhausting your body, the central nervous system will sound the alarm. A person will feel a loss of strength, bouts of unreasonable irritation, headaches and a lack of desire to do anything. Thus, the nerves require rest for the body.
What happens if you train every day?
Daily training makes it impossible for those athletes who do not use hormonal anabolic drugs and whose level of training is not high enough to fully recover. You need to approach such training gradually, trying other schemes of the training process. If you train one muscle group per day, then each muscle will have time to recover before the next week. But if you perform circular training every day, then practically none of the muscles will have time to rest, which means that you should not expect any benefit, progress, or results. Such activities will only lead to overtraining, fatigue and even irritability.
What happens if you train the same muscles every day?
During training, processes of destruction of muscle tissue inevitably occur, microtraumas are formed, which, with proper nutrition, are quickly healed by the body, and the tissues increase in volume and become more prominent.
During training, the body actively consumes energy, spends almost all of its reserves and partially consumes energy taken from the breakdown of protein molecules in the muscles. As a result of the reactions occurring at this time, a breakdown product, lactic acid, is released into the intercellular space in the tissues. If a person trains the same muscle groups every day, this acid accumulates in the tissues in quite large quantities, which leads to severe pain. In addition, there are many microtraumas, and they do not have time to heal. As a result, the muscles become clogged and stop developing.
How to properly train different muscle groups every day
As already mentioned, this scheme is only suitable for experienced athletes . In order to reduce the negative effects after the training process, the training week should be structured in such a way that the interval between training the same muscle group, for example legs, is as long as possible and the muscles have time to recover. Even with a four-day regimen, there is a very clear lack of recovery time if you do not correctly distribute muscle groups throughout the week.
For example, if today an athlete trained his back, then in the coming days, training that involves the biceps, a synergist of the back, will not be effective. That is, for several days after training your back muscles, you should not train your shoulders or biceps. Let's take a six-day workout as an example:
- Monday – chest muscle training.
- Tuesday – deltoid muscle training.
- Wednesday – leg workout.
- Thursday – back muscle training.
- Friday is a day of rest.
- Saturday – arm workout (biceps, triceps and forearm).
- Sunday – leg workout.
Is it possible to exercise every day?
It is scientifically proven that at least 24 hours must pass between classes before starting new workouts. During this period, the body recovers. We are talking not only about muscle tissue, but also about the central nervous system, which requires recovery after physical activity.
The higher the load, the more time you need to rest. For large muscles (legs and arms), 72 hours of rest is considered ideal.
You cannot combine training for small and large muscles on one training day. Each of these muscle groups requires different recovery times.
Beginners should generally be careful. You should consult with a trainer about how much you need to train per week to lose weight and achieve other results. This also applies to those who worked out before, but took a rest for more than 3 months.
Interesting! An experienced massage therapist can use massage to remove excess stress from the muscles. For those who, for some reason, need to increase the number of sports activities per week, it is worth finding a good massage therapist.
Is light exercise every day beneficial?
If you consider daily training as exercise, a light jog or several exercises with your own weight, then such an activity will not harm anyone. Unfortunately, a person will not receive results from such training. But, as you know, movement is life, so such morning exercises will give a person vigor, good mood and well-being. The main thing is not to overwork and feel the line between a light load for your health and an intensive one.
Lightweight training is a set of pull-ups, push-ups, crunches and squats that can be done at home, and it is best to alternate them with short morning jogs. All these exercises should not be performed daily; it is better to distribute them every other day and alternate with jogging.
And remember: too much is not healthy
In fact, experienced athletes practiced daily training mainly on the eve of important competitions. And the main fear was not to leave the race. Some did leave due to injuries received. Because overtraining has never benefited anyone. After all, to grow impressive muscles, form cool abs, powerful shoulders, strong arms and legs, time is needed.
Muscles don’t just grow like that, tea is not grass. Don't rush, enjoy the process of creating the architecture of your own body, feel like God, the creator.
And quantity will turn into quality when your muscles learn to recover completely, give them time to do this. Build up to supercompensation and repeat the workout. Be sure to agree on the frequency of training with your trainer. Recovery takes place in several stages: if carbohydrates are immediately replenished after training, then the microstructures of the cell need several days.
Everything is in our hands, it is very truely said and tested by practice. Subscribe to updates on my blog, I promise a lot of useful and interesting things about bodybuilding. Share a new topic with your friends on social networks. Well-deserved victories, achievements, heights and, of course, health!
Is it possible for a girl to train to lose weight every day?
Even for the purpose of losing weight, daily training is not the best option.
- Firstly, for a fat-burning effect, you need to keep your heart rate in the range of 50-70% of the maximum. Learn more about heart rate zones →
- Secondly, the average duration of one workout should be 40 minutes.
Therefore, the load on the cardiovascular system will be noticeable, which naturally implies at least a day of rest between workouts.
Selecting the right exercises
The most effective muscle training is possible when the program is selected by the trainer in accordance with the person’s level of training and other factors (gender, age, weight, etc.). Working out all the muscles of the body is achieved through a combination of cardio and strength training.
Strength training tones all muscles and corrects body proportions. Cardio exercise strengthens the cardiovascular system and helps burn the maximum number of calories. Although strength exercises do not burn many calories, they can significantly speed up your metabolism.
