How long should you rest in between workouts?

typically 10-30 minutes won't injure you unless you are doing more weight than you can handle. If you are sore then stop. 24 hours is really all your muscles need to recover assuming you are pushing them moderately hard.

Just make sure you are getting enough protein to help rebuild the muscle. Eventually the soreness will subside.
Try alternating...one day upper body exercises/weights, the next day lower body and so on. Try to do exercise every day.

Looking at your profile you are very young. Unless you have heart/lung problems you really need to up your exercise and decrease your caloric intake.

Cut out sugar to start. In all it's forms...learn the "hidden" names. If you crave sugar, reach for fruit (not fruit juice).
Cut out soda including diet soda...they are incredibly bad for you.

At your age, weight loss should come quickly if you eat healthy and significantly increase your weight exercises...not necessarily more weight but more reps. Add more weight every 2nd week or so. Weight/resistance training creates more muscle (get lots of protein too). Muscle burns 3 times more calories and even burns calories in your sleep!

kingjuwo wrote: »

in my experience, i have to take long rests after heavy compound movements, like the bench-press. If you do heavy lifts, i would say take around 2-3 minutes of rests before hitting the weight again. If you do isolation movements more, i would recommend going intense on the lifts by doing some supersets.

You should always give every single muscle you have worked 48 hours of rest. If you don't rest the muscle it won't recover so that means they wont grow as much as they can by recovery .

I mention this for clarity because OP is very new to exercise: Two sleeps between workouts of the same muscles is good, when the workout is a serious strength workout, I agree.

It's not essential, even at first, for most moderate intensity cardio type workouts. Here, fatigue can be your main guide.

I'm a believer in working one's way up gradually to a sensible level of combined pace, duration, intensity, etc., in cardiovascular exercise, so those intervening rest days may still be good at first, but they're not essential. For best fitness results, true high intensity cardio should not be a daily thing, though: Elite athletes don't train that way, so why should we?

Dilvish wrote: »

typically 10-30 minutes won't injure you unless you are doing more weight than you can handle. If you are sore then stop. 24 hours is really all your muscles need to recover assuming you are pushing them moderately hard.

Just make sure you are getting enough protein to help rebuild the muscle. Eventually the soreness will subside.
Try alternating...one day upper body exercises/weights, the next day lower body and so on. Try to do exercise every day.

Looking at your profile you are very young. Unless you have heart/lung problems you really need to up your exercise and decrease your caloric intake.

Cut out sugar to start. In all it's forms...learn the "hidden" names. If you crave sugar, reach for fruit (not fruit juice).
Cut out soda including diet soda...they are incredibly bad for you.

At your age, weight loss should come quickly if you eat healthy and significantly increase your weight exercises...not necessarily more weight but more reps. Add more weight every 2nd week or so. Weight/resistance training creates more muscle (get lots of protein too). Muscle burns 3 times more calories and even burns calories in your sleep!

Muscle burns something on the order of 2 calories more per pound of it per day, compared to fat. It also takes a long time to build, especially so in a calorie deficit. It's definitely a great idea to build muscle, for many reasons including its higher metabolic activity, but it's far from a quick fix.

And getting great nutrition, especially on reduced calories, is a wonderful plan. But cutting all sugar is beside the point - not essential.

Working out every day is fine. Some say rest days, what’s the point of rest days? I workout 2 hours every day.