5 Days a Week..?

[Steve7]

Right now i work out 3 days a week, Monday, Wednesday Friday. I was thinkin about switchin to 5 days a week, one muscle each day, Monday through Friday. What do you guys think of that..?

[PhiSigPhi]

I have a buddy that does that and hes ripped to shreds. Umm i think most people dont do it b/c they dont have time, but go for it.

[mitchcumstein]

Youll make more gains training 3x a week. 5x doesnt allow sufficient recovery time unless your juicing.

[PhiSigPhi]

i would agree except hes only workin one muscle group each time so theres plenty of recovery time

[mitchcumstein]

Its not so much the muscles that need it as your central nervous system. It takes 48 hours for CNS to fully recover meaning you need at least a day off in between workouts. Im not saying if you dont you wont gain, but youll gain faster if you take the day break.

[zrod]

is two days of resting not enough

[afnerd]

You can debate all day long on what frequency is better for muscle growth. I believe it to be a personal prefernce as to what works best for your lifestyle.

[zrod]

Originally Posted by afnerd

You can debate all day long on what frequency is better for muscle growth. I believe it to be a personal prefernce as to what works best for your lifestyle.

right on the money

[thesnow]

Originally Posted by zrod

is two days of resting not enough

i do 3 day split and 2-3 days cardio in between
so i wonder if 1-2 rest days is sufficient..

[Steve7]

C'mon i need more input Lol now i've been reading that doing a 3 a week full body workout is really good...i have no idea what to do now..help!

[PhiSigPhi]

Originally Posted by Steve7

C'mon i need more input Lol now i've been reading that doing a 3 a week full body workout is really good...i have no idea what to do now..help!

Seriously, this is my suggestion. If you are interested, try it for 3-4 weeks. It CANT hurt you for only 3-4 weeks. So if you dont see any improvements or you dont like it, try something else.

[Steve7]

Alright sounds good! But do you think i should work out one muscle each day..? or what? Like if i did that it would be Chest, Back, Legs, Shoulders, and Arms..? But I've heard that arms aren't good to work out by themselves, it actually decreases their size and muslce...

[RoyceDa59]

Originally Posted by Steve7

Alright sounds good! But do you think i should work out one muscle each day..? or what? Like if i did that it would be Chest, Back, Legs, Shoulders, and Arms..? But I've heard that arms aren't good to work out by themselves, it actually decreases their size and muslce...

Experiment with your workouts dude, this way you will find the magic formula that your body will respond to. IMO arms should get enough from the compound lifts (rows, deadlifts, pullups, bench press, military press etc) so in that case I wouldn't have an arms day.

[Steve7]

So what would the 5 days be..? I mean are there more muscles that I'm missin? Or would you just have a couple muscles twice a week...like Chest, Back, Legs, Shoulders, Chest...then next week switch to 2 back days..and so on...?

[RoyceDa59]

Originally Posted by Steve7

So what would the 5 days be..? I mean are there more muscles that I'm missin? Or would you just have a couple muscles twice a week...like Chest, Back, Legs, Shoulders, Chest...then next week switch to 2 back days..and so on...?

As I say experiment, I personally wouldnt work out 5 days a week, but try it and see how it works. If you wanted to work muscles twice a week then you could do a four day split- Upper body rest Lower body Upper body rest Lower body, something like that.

[mitchcumstein]

I work each muscle group 3x a week. But i only do 2-3 sets per workout. At the end of the week its all about the volume. 4-5 day splits that have you doing 1-2 muscles a day are useless in my opinion for 2 reasons. First it doesnt take a muscle a week to recover so your inviting atrophy by only using it 1x a week and wasting potential growth cycles. Second, hitting one muscle till its wasted just puts undue stress on the CNS and that takes more than one day to recover from so if you train on consecutive days its not getting sufficient rest. Muscles are resting too long, CNS not resting long enough. Its like taking 2 steps forward and then 1 back.

[afnerd]

This article might be helpful to you:
http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=933431

Personally I like the full body, but to each his own.

[Merk0135]

Personally, I believe breaking a muscle group down as much as you can per workout and then giving it enough time to heal completely before hitting it again allows for optimal gains. I know a lot of people in my gym that do a more circuit type of training and their gains are minimal. It could be bad diet or it could be that they aren't following through with their routine consistently enough to take advantage of their routine. You have to find what works best for you and there's no one on earth who can tell you what is best for your body except for yourself.

[aka_shock]

working a five day week myself i would say its easier to do 3 days as its hard to fit it all in.. but thats me, try 5 days for a bit and see how you feel, you should know if your too tired

[NiteHawk]

I have never been a fan of full body workouts in 1 day.