Exercise 7 Days Per Week?

daydreamblighter

I'm intending on doing Jillian Micheals "30 Day Shred" or "Extreme Shed & Shred" 7 days per week. (For those who don't know, it's similar to doing 20-60 minutes of circuit training).

When I went to the gym years ago doing a mixture of cardio and heavy weights, the instructors said to always have 1 day of rest between sessions.

I can see how important it is to rest if you're doing heavy weights and pushing to 100%, but do I need to rest doing circuit training?

The advice on "Extreme Shed & Shred" is to exercise 5-6 days per week. Is there any harm bumping it up to 7?

I find I don't ache the next day, so my muscles seem to be recovering OK...

What do you think?

fitnesslover74

Pay attention to your body. For my own sanity. I do take one or two rest days during the week. I make sure to adjust my calories that day. Maybe instead of a rest day, do yoga or go for a long walk. You don't absolutely need a rest day, but I find that breaking things up helps me stay on track.

elghee123

I tried doing 7 days but doing it for consecutively - can be tiring and boring. We all need a break so we miss doing it again! That's my cheat to myself.

UrbanRunner81

I like having a rest day. If you don't mind it then don't take one. I know after a hard training week I look forward to it.

GillianMcK

Recovery and rest is as important as the exercising, you might be able to sustain it for a while but you might find that you'll run into the over-training issues (where you do start to ache after doing things that shouldn't make you ache, tired all the time and more prone to injury), I done a lot of training this time last year (but still took 1 day a week as a rest day), but I was still doing too much (there were nights where I was doing a 5k, then an hours bootcamp then an hours boxing class), I had sore muscles all the time and was tired constantly, ended up with a very sore achilles (stopped doing as much before it went as far as an injury).

Listen to how your body is feeling if you start to ache take a rest day!!

jim9097

I do 13 - 17 routines a week. This is very doable but you are not going to be able to get away with it without any variation in exercise. You really do have to give your body time to heal. Within my routines, I have circuit training, martial arts classes, running, elliptical, and walking. With all of that said, I try to limit Sundays to walking only.

GillianMcK

Would also like to edit my response but it won't let me to add that if the exercise program created by the prefessionals is advising 1 or 2 rest days, I would be listening to the people with the knowledge, think if rest days weren't necessary then the likes of JM and Sean T would be pushing to have people working out 7 days a week!!!

There will be a very small percentage of people who can exercise 7 days a week with little or no consequences, the majority of us however do need rest days!!

irNathaniel

It is totally down to you - personally I train 6 Days aweek now. but if your body can handle it do it!

rejectuf

Rest days are important to allow your body to properly heal and maintain/build strength. You don't have to be sedentary on rest days, but you shouldn't be engaging in anything you would consider intense or challenging. Go for a walk or jog or do some light calisthenics if you feel the need to get moving, but really you should take it easy.

NoMoreStretchyPants

I've done the 30 day shred (I really liked it for cardio), however, I didn't really do it 30 days back-to-back, I wove it into my current strength/cardio schedule.

If you're *only* doing the 30 day shred, honestly I see no problem doing it 7 days IF you want to. It's a 30 min cardio/light strength/ab program and won't hurt you. However, if you were strength training (i.e lifting heavy) then absolutely, you should take a rest day. Muscle grows during rest.

Good luck with JM! Like I said...good little cardio workout. I also have her Yoga Meltdown DVD. I love that they are only 30 minutes!