hello everyone, i have been lifting for two years. currently 180 pounds around 12% body fat. 5’8’’ and 19 years of age. and i hate taking off days… cant stay out of the gym… currently on a calorie deficit and my goal is to get down to 170 pounds, but my question is, does anyone else here train and not take there off day ?
im currently rotating a split that is Shoulders, Chest, Back/Legs, Arms. and then an off day, but i dont take it and i just repeat those 4 days. but i do how ever get a great deal of rest and diet is near perfect. if i feel i am recovering am i good to go ? usually on arm day i have a refeed and increase calories and get extra sleep.
I’m a firm believer in rest and recovery days. My body is too. But then I’m not 19y/o anymore. Like yogi stated, it’s simply going to come down to how you feel. If your drained, weakened, or just experiencing simple aches and pains then take a day or 2 to rest. If you feel awesome everyday then go for it.
I’m 19 as well and I know exactly how you feel. I love being in the gym, I would lift 3 hours a day every day if I thought I could recover. I do a 5/3/1 bodybuilding type program, and I’ve training up to 14 days in a row for scheduling reasons and by the end of this, I am weaker on the big lifts and often have joint pain. The type of training you do might have an impact, but if you can train everyday without any nagging pains and still feel strong, then all the power to you. I think it might catch up to you though, especially on a deficit.
[quote]Yogi wrote:
If you feel like you can, you can. It’s one of those try-it-and-see situations.[/quote]
This.
Although it’s worth trying bothways and seeing whether you notice a big difference. It may be that you don’t notice you’re under performing until you try it with adequate rest.
At your age and experience level, I was fine with every day with no off days. I think it’s good to have a couple of years in there where you just really hit it hard every day. Some will surely disagree, but what can I say: it was fun at the time and didn’t lead to anything terrible happening.
Nowadays, a bit more than a decade later, I end up taking one day a week where I honestly just don’t want to go to the gym, and I find that those days end up being unproductive in the gym even if I go in to punch the clock.
[quote]Yogi wrote:
If you feel like you can, you can. It’s one of those try-it-and-see situations.[/quote]
This.
Although it’s worth trying bothways and seeing whether you notice a big difference. It may be that you don’t notice you’re under performing until you try it with adequate rest.[/quote]
I agree. I used to be the guy who refused to take a day off, probably borderline exercise-addiction. Even if I felt like shit I would go warm-up and start to feel “better” and then lift. Did I get work hard? Yes. Did I get sore and tired? Absolutely. Did I make any gains? No, not really.
Once I started following a program and took one or two rest days per week, I actually started improving my lifts, and I don’t feel so beat-up all the time.
Taking days off from training has also allowed me to start engaging in other activities outside of the gym. I don’t feel dependent on training and lifting to feel “normal” or productive. It wasn’t easy at first, but it has been well worth the growing pains.
Like others have said, test things out for yourself. Don’t take anyone’s word as the undeniable truth. I would suggest logging your workouts (not just weights/sets/reps, but mood, aches/pains, RPE) and start to look for trends. See if implementing some rest/recovery days improves your lifts or your attitude towards training. Best of luck!
well that was all really great info from each and everyone of you. maybe i will start by taking a day out of the gym a week and start seeing whether my lifts make drastic improvements or not. i guess it cant hurt to find out. at worst i do it for 2-3 months and no drastic changes and go back to the old way, but at best i can make huge gains. thanks from all of you ! will start to keep a log as advised above and watch out for joint paints and the sort.
If your recovery is that great then get on a tougher program like a Beyond 5/3/1 template or GVT etc -you’ll get better results and be grateful for the rest days
[quote]Tsotsc wrote:
im currently rotating a split that is Shoulders, Chest, Back/Legs, Arms. and then an off day, but i dont take it and i just repeat those 4 days.[/quote]
Do any of you people actually read before dishing out your brilliant responses?Look at that split for fucks sake!
No matter how hard you train (which I assume isn’t all that impressive) on each of those days it should be EASY to recover from THAT split without rest days. Nothing to do with age either.
But NO serious BBer trains legs and back on the same day (why?)- shows you don’t really know what you are doing and/or train like a pussy.
Get on a proper split and use rest days accordingly.
I too at one point tried training everyday and lost size.I find 2,3,4 days per week best IF you get mega amounts of sleep ,get plenty of food/protein shakes and recovey time.I think you’re way overtraining and it’s killing your gains.And i’m not kidding about sleep,you’ll notice a difference if you get 8 hrs or more. Good Luck!
[quote]steron99 wrote: I too at one point tried training everyday and lost size.I find 2,3,4 days per week best IF you get mega amounts of sleep ,get plenty of food/protein shakes and recovey time.I think you’re way overtraining and it’s killing your gains.And i’m not kidding about sleep,you’ll notice a difference if you get 8 hrs or more. Good Luck![/quote]
Were you eating enough to account for the additional caloric expenditure?
