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2005/09/27, 09:44 AM
I'm pretty new at this, but I have always heard that you should be working each muscle group about every other day, allowing for a little bit of rest in between. But the fitness plan that FreeTrainers.com provided only has me working my chest like once a week, and a few other muscle groups twice per week at the most. I was wondering if this is going to be an effective weight training program to help me gain some muslce mass. I know that there are a lot of theories about how and when to lift, but I'm just curious, in general, what do you think?? Thanks
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2005/09/27, 10:34 AM
If you ever take a look at bodybuilder's training split you'll find that they only train each muscle group once or twice per week. This allows adequate recovery time for the muscle. If you train the same muscle group every day or even every other day the little tears don't have enough time to repair, and results in overtraining. You will actually be weaker. I know it doesn't sound right but it is. I've read that 48-72 hrs is optimum time to go in between working muscle groups. That was a limited study done on only men and for a short duration. each person is different though. I wait 72 hrs in between muscle groups and work each group 2X's per week. I'm certainly no expert though and fairly new to lifting.
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2005/09/28, 08:11 AM
Sounds like this is a common question, I asked the same thing! I've been doing a full body routine mon, tues, thurs, and fri, but have been just flirting with the idea of a split. My current routine was relatively light weights and higher reps and only one set of each excersize, with probably three different excersizes per muscle group. This really seemed to work well for me, and I don't think I was overtraining as I wasn't very sore (except for the first week into it). Personally I think it's been a great routine for getting into the habit, developing overall strength and endurance, and more or less preparing me for more serious workouts.
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2005/09/28, 08:45 AM
exactly yooper. for beginners, a full body plan or very simple split (ie upper and lower body maybe) is an effective way to get down technique, build up some endurance, and get into the swing of things. later on you can adopt a split routine, depending on your goals.
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