Rest days

You shouldn't feel guilty for giving your body a rest. Do you feel guilty when you sleep at night? No (I'd hope not!) because your body needs it.

What does your lifting programming look like?
Also just because it's a rest day doesn't mean you can go out and do something active... go for a walk, do some yoga, stretching, hiking, biking, etc.

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justinkimcentral wrote: »

sardelsa wrote: »

You shouldn't feel guilty for giving your body a rest. Do you feel guilty when you sleep at night? No (I'd hope not!) because your body needs it.

What does your lifting programming look like?
Also just because it's a rest day doesn't mean you can go out and do something active... go for a walk, do some yoga, stretching, hiking, biking, etc.

Monday chest tuesday back wednesday leg thursday shoulder friday bicep/tricep

also get on a higher volume frequency program. This is a bro split which is very suboptimal

Agree with the above.

There is lots of literature that suggests that you *should* train each body part twice a week. For some body parts, more is okay. There is also lots of literature that suggests that recovery is a huge part of training. Rest days and deloads are both methods of mitigating fatigue. Nutrition is also super important. Sleep is as well.

Volume and intensity are super important as well. Volume is *roughly* the number of working sets x reps x weight on the bar. Intensity is the weight on the bar vs. your 1RM. So, if you can bench press 200 lbs and you are doing 5 sets of 5 reps at 160lbs then you are doing 80% of your 1RM.

Generally speaking, most people live in the 60% - 80% of 1RM in the 8 - 12 reps per set range. But, that depends on your goals. I was doing power lifting so I lived in the 5 x 5 world. For the most part, anyway.

I am guessing that you are not doing power lifting so you likely want to find weights and reps where you can do 8 - 12 reps. General comment there.....very general comment indeed.

Have you considered following a canned program? There are lots of examples....push/pull/legs for example? PHUL and PHAT are very popular as well.

What are your stats? What are your goals? What is your training experience? For how long?

Also keep in mind it's the rest for the recovery and repair that actually allows the improvement from a good workout - diet allowing.

Of course, you have gone to the other extreme of way too much rest.
You've taken all year to make the kind of advancement that could be done in 17 weeks, and actually with the increased frequency you would have made more.

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10332083/which-lifting-program-is-the-best-for-you/p1