is lifting weights every day bad for you

glockman17

thanks for info ^v^

pinkiemarie252

You could overwork yourself, but no, it isn't bad for you as long as you give your muscles a chance to recover. If you rotate muscle groups so for example you do your legs one day, core another day, arms/shoulders another day then repeat there's absolutely nothing wrong with it.

pavrg

No, it's not bad.

The whole point of the typical 3 or 4 day 'split', where you do a couple muscle groups a day, is to strength train everyday or almost everyday. You hit different muscle groups and by the time you start the split over again, those muscles have gotten their minimum 48 hours of rest.

cwolfman13

If you are hitting the same muscles and same muscle groups everyday then you are wasting your time. The benefits of lifting come with those muscles being rested after they work.

Also, judging by your question, I'm going to go out on a limb and say you're trying to just do your own thing...I can guarantee that you don't have the requisite knowledge to properly program your own lifting routine. Inefficient programming is not going to give you the results you are looking for...you'd be much better off working an actual tried and true routine...you will see better results and that routine will tell you how often to lift, how many sets/reps, when to up your weight, etc. Just willy nilly doing your own thing isn't going to do much...it will, at best be inefficient, at worst you could actually be doing more harm than good to your body.

Even people who do splits typically only do 4 days. Too much volume is counterproductive and can also lead to over train injuries.

AllanMisner

If you're doing it right, yes, it is bad to lift every day. Lifting places stress on your body and if done with no rest days, it can lead to adrenal fatigue. There is no good reason to lift every day. You can accomplish all of your goals lifting 2 - 5 days per week.

pavrg

Even people who do splits typically only do 4 days. Too much volume is counterproductive and can also lead to over train injuries.

No offense, but you might want to know the difference between 'volume' and 'frequency' before you start giving others advice.

Volume: Amount of exercises and sets done in a single session.
Frequency: How many sessions you train in a given time period.

If you are not going to shoot up steroids, you need a strength training frequency of at least 2x a week for each muscle group to make good progress. You also only need relatively low volume to start -- only 3-5 exercises a day to start with. A 4 day split kinda sorta gives a muscle group a mini extra rest if you work out all 7 days a week*, but from personal experience a lot of gyms don't have friendly hours on Sundays, so I personally prefer a 3-day split and just take Sunday off. YMMV.

*Unless you were actually referring to a 2 day split that is performed twice a week, in which case that is also fine. It's all about what fits into people's schedules.

remorckable

As far as I know, it's not necessary to lift weights anymore than 3 or 4 days per week. For me, losing weight is all about efficiency. If you exercise properly and do correct lifting of weight - you shouldn't need to lift weights for than a few times per week. Yes, you do need to let your muscles rest and repair after a workout. So focus on legs one day, then following day or two, do bi's and tri's and following days after that, work on your shoulders and back.

pavrg

As far as I know, it's not necessary to lift weights anymore than 3 or 4 days per week.

It isn't necessary to lift weights at all. People go through life perfectly happy without ever stepping foot into a weight room.

If what you meant is "it's not necessary to lift anymore than 3-4 days a week to make progress," that depends on the routine. If OP has the time to spend 90-120 minutes in the gym each session to do a full-body workout, s/he can workout as little as just twice a week and achieve results. This also requires a lot of mental discipline because 'there's always tomorrow.'

From personal experience, I favor a routine that gets me in the gym everyday because then it becomes a habit. There's no "I'll make it up tomorrow." If I miss a day, it's gone. It's also short enough that I can workout even on the busiest of days -- if I were to strength train only 4x a week, either the workout would be prohibitively long (~2.5 hours if you include time to commute/change x2/shower) or I'd have to sacrifice running everyday. There's no right answer as long as you're getting the proper frequency per muscle group.

But, the original question was whether it was 'bad' to strength train everyday. The simple answer is no. If OP is like me and has to get in-and-out of the gym in about an hour, there are routines that can get you into the gym everyday and you will make excellent progress.

marissalibra

How about people who work lifting? Isn't that how the kettle bell originated? These people lifted these bells everyday all day. Lucky if they had one day's rest. I'm just not sure why it's so bad to lift everyday. I'm not saying a whole of a lot of weight. I'm talking 10 pounds for the arms maybe for 30 minutes. Wouldn't that be like using your muscles for working? I just want to lose the flab.

martinel2099

You could overwork yourself, but no, it isn't bad for you as long as you give your muscles a chance to recover. If you rotate muscle groups so for example you do your legs one day, core another day, arms/shoulders another day then repeat there's absolutely nothing wrong with it.

What this person said.

You don't need to become a gym bunny to be in excellent shape. But even the gym bunnies know to at least split up muscle groups to allow adequate time for repair.

dbmata

thanks for info ^v^

depends.

No_Finish_Line

If you're doing it right, yes, it is bad to lift every day. Lifting places stress on your body and if done with no rest days, it can lead to adrenal fatigue. There is no good reason to lift every day. You can accomplish all of your goals lifting 2 - 5 days per week.

i think you can lift pretty intensely on a 6 day split and be ok.

the more intense your lifting workouts, probably the more need you'll have to for a rest day. think its good practice to take at least one a week tho

bugaboo_sue

As far as I know, it's not necessary to lift weights anymore than 3 or 4 days per week. For me, losing weight is all about efficiency. If you exercise properly and do correct lifting of weight - you shouldn't need to lift weights for than a few times per week. Yes, you do need to let your muscles rest and repair after a workout. So focus on legs one day, then following day or two, do bi's and tri's and following days after that, work on your shoulders and back.

It depends on what your specific goals are.

I work one muscle group a day and alternate legs and abs so I lift 5 days a week. I exercise properly and do correct lifting of weights however my particular "program" (for lack of a better word) has me lifting 5 days a week (or more if I chose to go to the gym on the weekends as well).

There are no right or wrong answers to the question. It depends on what a person's specific goal is and what they feel like doing. Regardless of what I do or have done I have always worked out 4-5 days per week and never had an issue with it.

EvanKeel

I'm *really* not an expert, but think it would depend on how much you're lifting, how often each muscle group is being worked, what the goals are, and how much recovery time is necessary to achieve those goals.

Yes, it could potentially be bad for you. Absent of more information, I don't know that lifting each day of the week would be my first recommendation to anyone.

All that aside, I've been satisfied with the 3 day/week, fully body routine I do.

cwolfman13

Even people who do splits typically only do 4 days. Too much volume is counterproductive and can also lead to over train injuries.

No offense, but you might want to know the difference between 'volume' and 'frequency' before you start giving others advice.

Volume: Amount of exercises and sets done in a single session.
Frequency: How many sessions you train in a given time period.

If you are not going to shoot up steroids, you need a strength training frequency of at least 2x a week for each muscle group to make good progress. You also only need relatively low volume to start -- only 3-5 exercises a day to start with. A 4 day split kinda sorta gives a muscle group a mini extra rest if you work out all 7 days a week*, but from personal experience a lot of gyms don't have friendly hours on Sundays, so I personally prefer a 3-day split and just take Sunday off. YMMV.

*Unless you were actually referring to a 2 day split that is performed twice a week, in which case that is also fine. It's all about what fits into people's schedules.

Ummm...pretty sure increased frequency would also lead to an overall increase in volume. I'm pretty sure that over the course of, lets say seven days...let's say I road 4 days per week at 20 miles per day...but then I decided to ride a fifth day...I'm pretty sure my frequency would have increased...along with an extra 20 miles in volume...pretty sure...

meshashesha2012

depends on the amount of weights being used in comparison to your total strength, if you are doing the same exact movements, etc

ana3067

Many have already stated, it depends.

Working the same muscles back to back? Bad idea. Working out different muscle groups back to back? Totally fine if it works for you.

The most common splits are generally:
a) Full body workout 3x a week (mon wed fri), which gives you 24 hours rest (48 on weekends) for your muscles. This is usually a good schedule for beginners. I used to do this, but once I got serious about lifting and started focusing on really increasing strength and lifting heavy, I moved onto the 2nd type..
b) Upper/lower body split. Usually done 4x a week so that you have ideally 48 hours rest. So Mon Tues Thurs Fri would be workout days, alternating between upper and lower body exercises. I do Upper/Lower/Rest/Upper/Lower/rest/rest.
c) Training a single muscle group every day, some muscle groups may be repeated more than others depending on the person's preferences/program. So e.g. chest + triceps, leg and butt, etc. So even if you work out daily, each muscle is ideally getting at least 24 hours of rest.

I personally would recommend a or b, simply because I'm not a fan of advocating routines that are primarily isolation work. Out of all my exercises I am only doing one isolation exercise now, which is replacing a compound exercise I was doing. Only reason I've switched to isolation is that I am trying to really target the one muscle, so I'd rather stick to isolation for that area for now until I decide on which method is more effective for my body. It would be really difficult to do c if most of your exercises are compounds.

To put things in perspective, when I first started out getting into free weights, I really didn't know what I was doing and basically did a bunch of exercises to work my whole body, every day of the week. I didn't see much progress, if any. I'm sure diet played a role too but even now on a 4x a week schedule I'm seeing results in slight periodic increases despite being at a caloric deficit (deficit makes it harder to progress). When I moved onto a 3x a week schedule, eventually it got to the point where I was just too tired to do the whole body routine properly, so again progress stalled. I had the best workouts on Mondays because I had given myself 2 days to rest. So now I know that for me, I need at least 48 hours of rest between working each muscle in order to have the best results. Some people do great on 24 hours of rest, but I'd recommend shooting for 48 especially if you're in a caloric deficit right nowm, since the body has a harder time recovering.

ETA: TL;DR: adequate rest is as important, if not more, as proper training. Figure out what your adequate rest is that will allow you to experience optimal training.

beertrollruss

It doesn't seem to be bad for this dude at my gym who works out 7 days a week, twice a day. As far as I know, he's not a pro bodybuilder or fitness professional but he has an awesome build. I think he's in his 40's or 50's. His workouts seem to last around an hour. I don't remember seeing him doing cardio and I haven't asked. I also heard him tell someone he only eats clean and doesn't use any powders or supplements.

3laine75

I'm going to go against the grain and say, yes - I think lifting 7 days would be bad for you.

Also, pointless - you won't give your muscles any time to recover. You're just breaking them down and not allowing anytime for repair/building.

mustgetmuscles1

I would say yes its bad because of increased risk of injury, decreased performance, and fatigue.

You could do it for a long time and not have a problem but most likely wont see any benefit over taking one or two days off per week.

Possible risk vs little reward.

Sam_I_Am77

It depends entirely on your programming, nutrition, and recovery. It is very possible to lift every day but it's not so cut and dry, a few variables to consider. Most of the people on MFP have no value in training in such a way. Lift hard 3 to 4 days tops and get adequate recovery. Even elite team-sport athletes (football, soccer) typically only lift 2 to 3 days a week, but when they're in the gym they push themselves hard.