Length of resting period: 24 hours or 48 hours?

gothchiq

I keep reading conflicting information about how long your rest period between lifting days should be. Some say 24 hours, some say 48. Thus far (for a year and a half, thereabouts) I have lifted every other day. Sometimes I take an extra rest day if I am feeling crummy, but that's infrequent.

Those of you who are experienced heavy lifters, what do you think is a good lifting schedule (particularly, for women, if it matters)?

jemhh

I lift MWF and then sometimes do a lower body only lighter day on Saturday.

That gives me 48 hours between lifting mostly. Well, 46.5 hours but close enough.

gothchiq

So basically you advocate the longer resting period. *ponders* suppose I did a lifting day, then a cardio day, then a resting day? or a lifting day then a resting day then a cardio day.... right now it's lifting and cardio, then rest, lather rinse repeat, etc etc. I am trying to get the most muscle for my efforts, but not sacrifice overall conditioning and cardiovascular benefits. The rest days keep me from getting repetitive use injuries I believe (I'm arthritic.)

jemhh

It depends on what kind of lifting you are doing. I use a full body program so I'm hitting everything on MWF. If you are doing some sort of split (upper/lower or push/pull) you might do them on back to back days. I do cardio on Tuesday and Thursday and either Saturday or Sunday.

nossmf

If you lift HEAVY on chest, you'll want to rest at least 48 hours before lifting HEAVY on chest again. However, some will say you can follow a HEAVY day with a LIGHT day the very next day, get blood flowing through your muscles to help facilitate healing and recovery.

If you're doing LIGHT or MODERATE, you may be able to get away with it every day, though ultimately this is more of an individual body-part issue. For example, my chest needs more recovery time than my legs, which bounce back very quickly.

If you lift chest one workout, back the next, legs the next, there really isn't a reason you can't workout every day, other than your own body's ability to rest up. Just make sure to give yourself at least a couple days every week of non-lifting (unless you're a professional), though doing cardio of some form will usually be fine if you don't go overboard.

rrruuunnn

Suppose to alternate upper and lower body or muscle groups. So 48 hours.

gothchiq

OK, time to switch up what I'm doing. Thanks guys.

cityruss

Listen to your body, it'll tell you what you can and can't do

cfp1981

With time, intelligent programming and sufficient recovery methods, you should find you can increase your training loads as work capacity will improve, enabling you to lift more frequently. Lifting 3 days a week is not a bad starting point at all, I tend to do 5 days a week just fine, you just need to be smart about it. Ie pulling movements one day, pushing movements another, upper body / lower body, light days, heavy days etc.