Do you gain muscle from exercising daily?

Do you gain more muscle from a daily workout than when you work-out every other day?

  • yes

    Votes: 97 41.6%

  • no

    Votes: 136 58.4%
  • Total voters
    233
semper60003 said:
in order to grow muscle quicker you must keep your body guessing and eat heavy but healthy.
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Keep your body guessing? I think that if you tell yourself that you are going in to lift for a max in the deadlift (obviously this is planned - so no guessing is involved) it will still be as hard as a max ever is and it will cause growth no matter what.

Bodybuilding is flawed because of thinking like that. Keeping the body guessing? What does that mean?

Lift ever-heavier weights, eat properly, and you'll get bigger.

3-5 days a week is all that is necessary. Lots of natural guys got big from 3 or 4 day a week routines, with a focus on lifting heavy ass weight, and disregarding set/rep schemes in favor of an intuition of stimulated but not annihilated muscles.

Some of the best bodybuilders of all-time got huge from being powerlifters first.

Most people don't focus on strength enough.
 
It is also worth noting that this question is insane, because it's highly individual (no, i'm not talking about drugs); everyone is different and has different physical histories and nervous system development.

You can't say that lifting 3x a week is the optimal thing for EVERYONE. It may be great for an experienced lifter, but a newbie might need stimulation to be spread out more (what he might accomplish in the span of 4-5 workouts, the experienced lifter does in 3).
 
I think this is a highly individualized question; however, working out the same bodypart every day is definitely a no no. However, if one were to alter body parts between days, then this would make more sense. From a scientific view, protein synthesis takes 48 to 72 hours. Thus, if one were to try to optimize one's program on the basis of this time frame, it would seem that one should workout each muscle group every 48 hour to 72 hours or at two times a week. Of course the energy system as well as the nervous system comes into play and one can still overtrain even if waiting between 48 hours to 72 hours for the next workout; but varying the intensity can help eliminate the effects of overtraining of the nervous and energy systems. In summary, one can workout everyday, but not the same body part and one should also vary intensity so as to minimize overtraining.
 
Instead of looking at how many days one spends in the gym each week look at the total hours per week. You could spend 3 days a week in the gym totaling 4.5 hours (1.5h sessions) while another person could spend 5 days a week in the gym totaling 3h 20min (40 min sessions). Now we all know the body rapidly tires when subject to intense physical exercise, catabolism can take effect which is what we all dread. Spending 1.5 hours in the gym is the recipe for over training. Intensity is sacrificed, lifts are not at 100% capability and fatigue sets in. So scientifically the last 30-40 minutes of that 1.5h workout could be counter effective and actually mitigate gains.

The person who works out 5 days a week spends only 40 min or less in the gym. He/she is in prime state to lift, can train at maximum intensity and give the muscle group being trained all the attention. The risk of over training the muscles is minimized as nutrients are replenished quickly after the short workout.

You could argue that since lifting 5 days a week your body has less off days to recover. But the fact is each muscle is only being trained once a week and since you have only worked 1 major muscle group that day , not two, your body takes less time to recover.

Doing 2 large muscle groups say chest and back the same day makes little sense to me. Back would be sacrificed at the cost of training chest first or vice versa.

I follow the Max-OT principals but have altered it a little. I am on a bulking cycle atm so I increased the sets somewhat.

mon - legs
tues - arms, abs
wed - shoulders (30 min workout)
thurs- back
fri - chest

sat and sun off days. If I am busy that week I'll only workout 4 days that week but still keep time spent at the gym that week under 3.5h. Quality over quantity.
 
rocketscientist said:
Hey - back in my teens I used to work my biceps daily and I grew at least an 1 inch taller. So yes, I believe working out daily, in particular biceps, improves growth. :D

I just wished I hadn't introduced rest days by working out 3 times a week - I could have grown so much taller than 5'10''...
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so you're saying working out your biceps makes you grow taller?
 
"i am not an expert by any means. but i would say 7 days MINIMUM."

i'm not sure about that.

I think you'll find most people lift each muscle about 1 time a week on here. At least that is what i have observed. I was told a long time ago though that the muscle starts to atrophy at 36 hours. BUT even if i role with that rule i just keep in mind the secondary muscles being used so the whole 36 hour thing doesn't get to my head.
 
sreed11 said:
"i am not an expert by any means. but i would say 7 days MINIMUM."

i'm not sure about that.

I think you'll find most people lift each muscle about 1 time a week on here. At least that is what i have observed. I was told a long time ago though that the muscle starts to atrophy at 36 hours. BUT even if i role with that rule i just keep in mind the secondary muscles being used so the whole 36 hour thing doesn't get to my head.
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36 hours eh? That could be true. Nothing is set in stone when it comes to building muscle for the most part so I dunno about that. I know many people who have great success working the same muscle twice a week. My legs did not grow until I worked them twice a week. Even if they were still sore I worked them out and it actually worked. According to every expert you should never work a muscle when its sore. Just goes to show you trying new things even if they contradict the "rules" is good to do just to see what happens. Failing 5 times is well worth it if on the 6th time you hit gold.
 
Well, I find that bodypart splits are ineffective for me, personally. A recent study showed that by splitting up the volume of arm exercises from one workout to 3 separate workouts, there was more hypertrophy when it was spread out. The same total volume was performed, but there was more frequency, leading to better growth.

I love full-body workouts or hitting the same major muscle groups at least 2-3 times a week. Sometimes I'll go as far as deadlifting 3x a week (my max is 550 at 190 right now).

I think daily lifting is totally fine and most people want excuses to lay off. Sometimes you know you need the rest though or your output will just plain suck. You have to know yourself.
 
dhuge67 said:
Well, I find that bodypart splits are ineffective for me, personally. A recent study showed that by splitting up the volume of arm exercises from one workout to 3 separate workouts, there was more hypertrophy when it was spread out. The same total volume was performed, but there was more frequency, leading to better growth.

I love full-body workouts or hitting the same major muscle groups at least 2-3 times a week. Sometimes I'll go as far as deadlifting 3x a week (my max is 550 at 190 right now).

I think daily lifting is totally fine and most people want excuses to lay off. Sometimes you know you need the rest though or your output will just plain suck. You have to know yourself.
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Agreed, I've used HST type routines exclusively for about 6 years, and as long as I'm eating to gain, I grow. Even at 37 years old. Each body part gets worked (with varying volume and weight) 3x a week every week. As you said, protein synthesis takes roughly 48 hours to return to baseline once a muscle is worked enough to cause it in the first place. After that, it's ready to be worked again. The limiting factor is the CNS, and that's the reason for the variability with volume and rep schemes. So, to the original poster, working the same muscle groups everyday with no fatigue management is not a good idea. You may see gains initially, but that won't last long and you'll most likely end up injured or overtrained.
 
It all varies on a case by case basis.

Any trainee goign to the gym and lifting weights with some amount of dedication is goign to put some muscle on his frame.

but, that said, for the VAST amount of 'average lifters' and i use that term loosely because in today's supplement saturated population there are alot more people on steroids, pro-hormones, and other supplemental programs that really are an "X" factor when figuring this out..but, for your average joe, kitfox, and chris so to speak your going to need at least 24-48 hrs of REST (this means proper feeding and sleeping!)for the muscle group exercised before you go at it again - this usually translates into exercising every 2nd day. Anything else, can quickly become overtraining, lead to injury, minimizing your gains, etc.
 
Depends how you break up your routine really.

If your workouts are short (45 mins), and specific to body parts so that they wont get over trained the rest of the week, than you can achieve greater gains in a smaller amount of time.

The question I have is... Please answer this!!! lol

(and this is an example)

If you train your back one day, and then you train your biceps the next day, will your biceps be able to repair as efficiently if your back is still somewhat repairing from yesterday?

Is there a limit to how many different muscle groups your body can repair at a time?
 
I just started training again, and for the time being I am using the routine that I used as a teenager.

Monday - Chest
Tuesday - Legs
Wednesday - Back
Thursday - Shoulders
Friday - Arms
*I train cardio for 30 min. every other day, and abs every other day

Weekend off

When I was a teen this schedule worked wonders for me. After two months I would change my routine i.e. go to high reps with low weight if I had been training low reps and heavy.

Ten years later I am waiting to see how this routine will work for me now. I don't know if I will be able to handle it or not. I have been back at it now for almost a month, and I have already gotten stronger and my muscles have responded so far. One advantage that I have now is that I get much more rest than I did when I was a teen.
 
CarterMalone said:
Depends how you break up your routine really.

If your workouts are short (45 mins), and specific to body parts so that they wont get over trained the rest of the week, than you can achieve greater gains in a smaller amount of time.

The question I have is... Please answer this!!! lol

(and this is an example)

If you train your back one day, and then you train your biceps the next day, will your biceps be able to repair as efficiently if your back is still somewhat repairing from yesterday?

Is there a limit to how many different muscle groups your body can repair at a time?
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Yeah that's a good question and I would assume that since your body is healing back and biceps then the process would be slower, but on the other hand when you work say legs one day then the next day do chest, there will be a greater anabolic response because you have stimulated more muscle groups causing higher hormone release. That is the principle of full body workouts, you are creating the highest anabolic response possible by working every muscle group in the same day. Many people feel it leads to over training and I tend to agree. I use a 4 day split and it works well for me.

But regardless, it is kind of a pointless question because no one is going to take 3-4 days off after working each body part.
 
I have a feeling I'm a little late for this convo ...

dsl said:
I go to the gym 5 day/week and I don't have any trouble. I think it really depends on how you have your split set up. If you work one muscle too often then you will overtrain--Period!

I work most muscle groups 2x/week but it is at a reduced volume each time so that the volume is comparable to me working each muscle group only once/week.


Note that this works for me and may work for you or it might not. It really varies from person to person.
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This comment caught my eye ... a HST or DC Fan are we? Right there with you my friend! My program is also Low volume/Mod Frequency (a HST/DC mutation) and strength gains have progressed nicely. Growth, however, is another issue. I've seen my best gains using a 3-2 upper/lower split. Again though, what works well for some may not work well for others, naturally.

That said (and back to the main question), growth is dependant on many factors; age, genetics, level of development, diet ect. The bottom line, regardless of these issues, is that we do not grow in the gym, but rather at home when we sleep; as so many have mentioned. Given the proper training program, coupled with a balanced diet and adequate rest, I would say that it IS possible to grow LBM using an ED routine. I would not advise it, though. There are more efficient ways to obtain optimal growth with out putting your body through unnecessary or added stresses.

Regards,
Sprt

If you haven't already, look into HST and DC principles. Take what you learn and try to apply them to a routine that fits you, your body type, and what you know about to be true about yourself (in terms of growth).
 
You have to have time to rest IMO. I WO 5 days a week. 3 on 1 off, 2 on 1 off. Works well for me. I guess if you wanted to WO every day you could, but it bears the risk of over training.
 
my work schedule is constantly changing so every week it changes for me but between 3 and 5 days seems best. anything less and u'd have to cram to much into each sessions and any more and u might as well move into the gym that you workout in. and 48hrs between body parts is the best for rest, I also am a fan of after a 3 month span at the gym that you take a 4 or 5 day break. this will totally recover every muscle in your body
 
You do not gain muscle from exercising daily. You gain muscle from resting and recovering along w/ a proper diet and supplementation. You grow outside of the weight room.
 
I workout only 4 to 5 days a week and I think this is the best because your body needs rest. The thing is that you will gain even if you workout daily if you split your muscle groups so that you don't have really long routines and you eat a ton.
 
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