How Often Should I Train With Weights?

Weight training is a vital part of any exercise program.  This facet of exercise not only helps to increase strength and muscles mass, but it can also help to speed up your metabolism and increase your energy.

However, if you are a beginner to weight training, you might wonder how often you should train with weights.  And this is a great question to begin learning about weight training in general.

Why Lifting Frequently Isn’t Always Better

The trick with weight training is that you need to actually rest more than you need to train.  When you train with weights, you are breaking down the fibers in the muscles of your body.

These tiny tears in your muscles will need to repair in order to grow larger and stronger muscles. Each time you train with weights, you are allowing the opportunity for this re-growth to begin; however, you need to give your body time to complete the process.

The best advice on how often to train with weights is to skip the day after lifting for a particular muscle group.

For example, if you lift for your upper body one day, you should not train it on the following day. But if you want to lift for your upper body one day and then the lower body the next day, that’s fine. So long as your muscle groups are getting about forty-eight hours of rest in between workouts, this will allow your body to build muscle.

Why Resting Is Essential After Lifting With Weights

When you’re not resting after you train with weights, you are not allowing the fibers to rebuild. Instead, you are continuously breaking down the muscle fibers, which can cause injuries. Some of these injuries can be so severe that you might have to rest for a much longer time to get things back to normal – or even have corrective actions taken.

Tears in the muscles can take a long time to grow back and then may require therapy in order to grow in the proper direction as before. The point is that you can keep working out a part of your body that needs time to repair itself in order to work better. You’re eventually going to hurt your overall training by doing that.

Which Muscles Repair More Quickly?

This is a good question to ask when you train with weights. Some muscles do repair more quickly. Many experts say that training your abdomen each day is okay, while others say that even these muscles need a rest too.

If you feel that you can complete the same quality of abdomen exercises on a daily basis, slowly increasing the intensity and the repetitions, you can feel confident in doing exercises each day.

On a final note, there are many things that constitute weight training besides just when you train with weights. Pilates, some forms of yoga, and calisthenics can all stress the muscles in the same way as weight training due to using body weight as leverage. When in doubt, take a rest in between these workouts.