Is it a hindrance to not rest between lifting days?

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xxthoroughbred
xxthoroughbred Posts: 346 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I generally try to stick to lifting every other day but sometimes I feel lazy when I miss a day (even when I do cardio instead). Is it detrimental to my success (BF%, muscle gains, etc.) to not always rest a day? I don't usually split up muscle groups when I lift but it's always 24 hrs between sessions.

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  • AbsoluteNG
    AbsoluteNG Posts: 1,079 Member
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    Exercising everyday is fine and doing cardio helps rebuild your muscles faster as it increases blood flow to help aid in muscle repair. Olympic athletes also spend 7 days in the gym.
  • FullOfWin
    FullOfWin Posts: 1,414 Member
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    If you are doing serious heavy lifting then you should not work the same muscle groups 2 days in a row, and likely you should be doing a full body routine that would cause you to work the same muscles 2 days in a row if you didn't have a rest day.
  • BrianSharpe
    BrianSharpe Posts: 9,248 Member
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    Exercising everyday is fine and doing cardio helps rebuild your muscles faster as it increases blood flow to help aid in muscle repair. Olympic athletes also spend 7 days in the gym.

    Not exactly a reasonable comparison as Olympic athletes have been training for years and have coaches, trainers etc etc all designing their programs and constantly monitoring them.......

    Exercising everyday is probably ok (as long as you're doing different activities) but there is a risk of overtraining depending on the volume and intensity of the exercise. There is, however, a very good reason for not lifting on consecutive days; the mechanism whereby you become stronger is that you actually damage the muscle fibres when lifting and it's the repair process that results in gains. If your muscles don't have time to repair themselves properly you'll only hinder your progress.
  • ilovedeadlifts
    ilovedeadlifts Posts: 2,923 Member
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    If you are doing serious heavy lifting then you should not work the same muscle groups 2 days in a row, and likely you should be doing a full body routine that would cause you to work the same muscles 2 days in a row if you didn't have a rest day.

    this.


    it depends on your recovery level. olympic athletes are in the gym daily because either
    a: their sport doesn't involve heavy lifting
    b: they are the best of the best
    c: they have drugs and supplements for recovery
    d: a combination of the above.

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