Weightlifting Question

Weightlifting Question

I have a question about weightlifting. Let's say I did my biceps, shoulders, triceps, and chest yesterday...is it OK if I do them again today? Or do I have to let my muscles "rest"? I am not really sore in either area as I didn't work out TOO hard...but I can feel it a little.

TY TY TY

 

depends on how much weight you used.. how long you worked out.. how long you've been working out etc.. etc.. you have to remember to pace yourself.. if you're just starting try doing it a few times a week and then generally working your way up to 5 and then possibly 7.. i know that it takes.. like ten days for muscles to heal if their injured.. or.. something like that.. maybe just strained.. er.. something.. but yea.. pace yourself.. -.-

-Lost

 

The point in lifting weights is to get stronger of course... when you lift you NEED to get sore, this way you will know that the "fibers" or whatever they are in your muscles are damaged, when they are damaged this tells your body to build them back and when they build them back they build them back stronger so yes you should rest after lifting weights... someone correct me if I am wrong

 

I'm no expert but what I've generally believed was that for low-weight, high-rep work (things like crunches or low-weight bicep curls) you don't need to rest a day, but for high-weight low-rep stuff you should leave a gap of a day between working the same muscle group.

 

I've been lifting weights for about 4 months, and have been doing it twice a week...I'm going to start doing it 3 times, but I guess I have to skip a day in between... Bah

 

You can work the muscles safely unless they're fairly sore before lifiting. It's more effective in the long run to let the nitric acid responsible for much of the muscle pain dissipate before re-working a sore muscle. As the muscle is "rebuilt," it will bring slightly more strength with it, and not allowing it to heal can significantly impair a workout. If there's no real soreness, you can work them again, particularly if you vary the intensity of the workout (ie one day do low-rep high weight, and next high rep, low weight). If the muscles are sore the next day, it's a good idea to let them rest, particularly if the discomfort is fairly severe.

You might also try staggering your lifts to work, say, pecs, tris, shoulders, then the next day do bis, back, lats. When I trained six days a week, we did upper body one day, and lower body the next day, and since lower body day didn't require as much time (as there are generally fewer lifts involved), we increased our cardio on that day, tacking on an hour on the bikes or whatever. We'd always take Sundays off, though a few of us would generally get together for some b-ball or something, anyway.

have fun

 

Well, why are you working out, anyways? Ok, if you did your biceps, shoulders, triceps, and chest yesterday, and you didn't work out too hard, then what are you working out for?

With that said, if you work out (and I mean really work out, since it seems you only did half a set without even challenging yourself) you should typically give 48 hours of muscle rest before you work that area again. The fact that you didn't try to hard means that you're a)wasting your time or b)not moving ahead.

IF you've been working out for four months, you would have seen some really dramatic changes. A good thing to do, for rapid healing of your muscles, is to eat some carbs (like half a wheat bread sandwhich) about 30 mins before the workout. Load up on water about an hour before the workout (keep drinking water, mmm it's so good). After you work out for about 45 minutes (the workouts HAVE to be long, if you're doing them fast then again, you're wasting your time) you stop, log your results, and then go back and finish the other half of your sandwhich, along with something with protien like milk, and then only a LITTLE bit of protien. People think Protien is the master of all that is muscle, when it's really not.

OK, after you've done that the first day... you're going to feel it the next morning and day after. Luckily, you'll have picked a new area to work. Your legs and butt should be an area you should definately work, because well, as opposed to the rest of your body, that's where most of your muscle is. Remember: Muscle burns fat. Strong legs = fat burning machine. Another key component is your abs. They burn fat like nobody's business. So, you should do something like:

Upper Body Monday (chest, abs, biceps and triceps and wrists) - pressure is your friend. Don't push yourself too hard, but make sure you push yourself enough, constantly. Muscles adapt and can hit platues in which you'll not see muscle growth for weeks/months, unless you keep the workouts different and challenging.
Lower Body Wednesday (squats, gluts, abs, inner thigh) - make sure you feel the burn when doing these. You can lose a lot of overall body fat by working these areas. Believe it or not, it helps achieving the "cut" look later on.
Shoulders and Back Friday (shoulders, and upper and lower back - careful doing these, make sure you practice FORM before trying to lift those weights) this will give you the broad shoulder look, and again just build overall muscle.

Throw in some cardio and you've got yourself a great body in less than two months. Feeling sore isn't a bad thing, and it shouldn't make you give up. Feeling sore felt good to me, as did working out. There's just this feeling you get when you look at your workout logs and see how much strength you've gained. The problem is keeping up, making sure you stick with it. If you don't feel like you're trying hard enough, just up the weight a bit, or take it slower. I see a lot of kids and even people my age (19) still doing weights the wrong way. They throw their arms and use momentum, ect... when lifting. I'm like, ok what the hell?

Make sure you take a few seconds, yes you heard me right, a few SECONDS to get into the up and down positions of your workouts. Pushups are easy when you've got momentum. Try a few SLOW pushups compared to a bunch of fast ones. Feel your muscles shaking? Good. That means you're tearing apart those weak little bastards to be replaced with stronger, more efficient fibers.

Remember, nothing helps repair your muscle like a bit of gatorade and a 4:1 ratio of carbs to protien after a workout. Wow, I talk too much... :lol:

 

I work those muscles 5 days a week, it's my gym schedule.
It works, its worth it.

If you're sore, good, keep lifting.
Thats how it works

 

Ahhh I hate that! Gym schedule? Burn it!! You reach nowhere near your potential if you workout day after day, your muscles DO NOT REPAIR THEMSELVES as they should. Trust me, if you changed it to 3 times a week, you'll actually see a difference!

 

I do see a difference, trust me on this one.
I work out 5 days a week, weekdays, to be exact.
Work out is usually takes between 1-2 hours.
I work all of my upper body, my back, and my abs during this time. I get sore, not overly sore, therefore, the next day I am good to go again.

I've been doing this for over 8 months now, and trust me, the difference is incredibly noticeable.

 

Yeah but like I said, you're nowhere near your potential. I know the body really really well, and unless you're Superman, your muscle fibers do not twist back together in full as they should. It doesn't matter if you work out 7 times a day on the same muscle group, because you're just working at low potential and damaging, yes damaging, your muscles.

Given two people with similar metabolisms, hell let's just give the one with better metabolism an advantage, let's say they both work out.

One works out 5-7 days a week on his chest, abs, and biceps/triceps.
The other works out 3 days with 48 hours in between working the same muscle groups.

Now given the exact same workouts, the one who definately will get more muscle growth, better muscle growth, stronger muscle growth, and more muscle mass, will be the 3 day guy. Why? Because by the time he works out again, his muscles are actually READY for stimulation, whereas the other doesn't give his muscles enough time to fully repair, thus they are constantly in a state of deterioration. Hence, his muscles are slowly but surely being grinded to dust.

 

Ok, sure, you have a good point and all.
But I'm just saying in my personal opinion, my muscles do not stay sore/tired for long periods of time. Now say if they did, then I would take longer breaks from working out, but because they do not, 24 hour breaks are working good for me.

I'm not saying this goes for everyone, I'm just saying that this is how my body works, and it's been doing fine so far. Sure..maybe I am missing out on slightly better muscle growth etc. But untill I realize my schedule is not working for me, I shall stick with it

Do not mean this in an offensive way either, just stating some facts.

 

Ahh, sorry man. I didn't mean to type a lot, I've been typing too much these past few minutes. I'll stop myself from writing paragraphs again and just apologize for all of that, hehe. I didn't mean for it to be offensive or condesceding, but that's what it seems like after reading it again. I apologize full heartedly.

 

Lol, no worries.
I did not take it offensively.

And to the maker of this thread, you can learn something from our little squabble

 

um...i always thought pushups were better than benchpressing...i mean i've done both but i'd have to say pushups definatly makes me feel better....is it just me or are pushups actually better?

 

Pushups are better.
They work more muscles.

 

No no no NO NO NO FOR THE LOVE OF GOD NO!!!!! That's absolutely TERRIBLE advice!!!

Do NOT work the same muscles twice in a row before they've had a chance to heal. You're doing yourself MUCH more damage than necessary and you're not helping yourself at all. Muscles do NOT grow when you're at the gym, they grow when you're RESTING. If you don't allow your muscles to rest and heal by continually tearing them (which is what weight lifting does) you're not getting the benefits of exercise even half as much as you could or should be. If you're a beginner it's ok to work the same muscles twice in one week, at opposite ends of the week. I've been body building for years now and I don't work the same muscles more than once a week.

Because if you haven't worked them enough so that you can easily go back and do them again the next day, you aren't doing squat, right?

 

Benchpresses are better if you use dumbells instead of a barbell. They force you to use the stabilizer muscles which provide the real strength in your arms.

 

Well a lot of people have ruined benchpressing. They do it to show off how much they can lift in one round, which is not the way to do it. Granted, pushups are nice when starting out... but once you've got good chest strength it's time to move on to Dumbell flys. I like dumbell flys because you can target specific muscles like that, and give you a really good defined look around the chest. Ever since I stopped working out as I used to and became a lot less active, however, I've grown semi-man boobs... so yeah if I was to try and work out again, I'd go pushups then dumbell flys.

 

Dumbell flys>pushups, yes.
I did forget about those.