Strength - rest days?

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julepgirl
julepgirl Posts: 55 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I've been doing 30DS for a few weeks, and for the last couple days I've also been going to a gym and working with a personal trainer on circuit training. Today he asked about my workout video and I explained it to him and mentioned that I do it every evening except the two days a week that I work with him. He told me that I shouldn't do strength training every day - that when you strength train you get tiny rips in your muscles and they need a day off to heal before you stress them again. Is this true? Should I only do 30DS/circuits every other day?

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  • notoriousgtt
    notoriousgtt Posts: 75 Member
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    Sure, muscles are built by tearing the muscle fibres and allowing them to rebuild, but focus on different areas and muscle groups on different days and that will allow the groups your not working to heal up.
  • DopeItUp
    DopeItUp Posts: 18,771 Member
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    Doesn't JM recommend doing 30DS every other day? I wouldn't do the same exercises every day, sounds like a recipe for disaster. At the same time, 30DS isn't really strength training, it's more of a conditioning thing so it's much lower impact. Still, I'd try swapping out for something else every other day or just plain resting.
  • julepgirl
    julepgirl Posts: 55 Member
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    That's interesting, and good advice. I've never heard advice to do 30DS every other day, but it's possible I just missed it. I have to admit, I like the idea of resting every other day, but that's out of laziness. Maybe I'll try and figure out something to do on the off days. I'm very resistant to pure cardio stuff because I've got such bad knees that asking them to carry my weight for more than regular daily activity makes it pretty tough (even cycling or the eliptical leave me in agony for days). I've found with 30DS, I only have to alter a few moves to keep my knees to a tolerable level of constant ache, rather than screaming pain, which I get from jogging or even long walks. I want to build up my strength while I lose weight because I feel that this will doubly improve my knee situation - my legs will be stronger to protect and help my knee joints, and there will be less weight for them to carry. Then I will be able to take on more cardio with less pain. Both 30DS and my trainer are pretty good at working all different areas daily, so I'm going to have to really get clever to come up with something to do on the "off days", I guess.

    Anyhow, thank you both very much. I appreciate the help - there is so much about exercise I just don't know.

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