Dec 14, 2011 by Tatianna
I have been getting a lot of emails asking me a very similar question that goes something like this: ” I don’t understand, I work out 5 – 6 and sometimes 7 days a week, why am I not seeing any muscle definition? “. After answering numerous emails i just decided to write about that to answer this question and to help you understand how to get the best results from your workouts.
The first thing I am going to tell you might come as a surprise - If you are working out 5 -7 days a week, you will never see any muscle definition on your body. The reason for that is our body builds muscle when we are at rest not when we workout, so if you are not resting your muscles will break down and NOT grow.
If you understand how the body works, you will understand that you shouldn’t be working out more than 4 days a week with strength training, sometimes 5 but that only include a day extra for moderate cardio only ( unless you are a professional athlete there is absolutely no need to strength train more than 4 days a week ).
When we train with enough intensity we create micro tears in our muscles, the body recognizes the tears and begins to rebuild it. If all you do is tear tear tear, guess what – the body cannot repair therefore build, and you will come to a constant state of overtraining ( trust me I’ve experienced this in the past ). We need rest, otherwise you will see no results.
How Train For Best Results
If you want to never get stuck with your training and build muscle the proper way you need to train in cycles 6-8 weeks and then rest for about a week. I think 6 weeks is a good number with 8 you will really be pushing it ( if you are an athlete then 8 weeks is fine ). If you always working out without not having that week off for your body to reset, what end up happening is not only you will hit plateau, but you will loose motivation in training, you will also begin to loose strength and this is how most people give up working out all together.
This is how I’ve been training every week with great results and without getting overtrained.
- Monday – Semi intense Cardio
- Tuesday – Lower body ( I always do include a bit of upper body movements as well, this way we burn more calories with every exercises, but I do place the focus on the lower body. )
- Wednesday – Upper Body ( but still using full body movements in certain exercises – as a unit )
- Thursday – Active Rest ( walking, hiking, tennis, is all considered as an active rest. What is not considered an active rest is – walking from the couch to the refrigerator all day, driving all day, complaining all day etc ).
- Friday – Lower Body
- Saturday – Upper Body
- Sunday – Complete Rest
If you don’t like to split your routines into lower and upper body then you can do full body workouts 3 days a week, but you always have to rest the following day. But I did notice that better results come from 4 days a week with split routines.
You can of course choose your own working out cycle this is just an example.
Another thing I would like to point out is this: You should feel energized after every single workout you do, if you don’t feel energized it’s a first sign that you are overtrained. The whole point of working out is to feel great and full of energy, NOT tired and wanting to pass out.
If you did end up overtraining these are the usual symptoms:
- Lack of motivation
- Muscle Twitching
- Restlessness or having a hard time falling a sleep
- Loss of appetite
- Loss of strength
- Mood swings
If you are experiencing any of these then it’s time to take a full week off and begin your training fresh, and this time the proper way.
But the most important thing to know is that working out is only 20% of your results, the other 80% is all in your nutritional approach. If you are not eating the right foods you are not going to get great results no matter how much you train or for how long. Nutrition is art and if you want those lean muscles and if you want to see your abs, nutrition is where your answers are. So ask your self are you training correctly? Are you getting plenty of rest? Is your nutritional approach matches your training?
