weight training scheduale

[PhilM1]

my weights teacher at school says i should never work on the same muscle back to back. i.e. monday - bicep curls, tuesday - bicep curls. is this true or should i just pump mass iron with the same muscles i want to pump up? yep thats right timmy you know what i did to the water.............

[crash]

no, you should never work the same muscles back to back. each muscle group worked should have a 24-48 hour recovery time, esp. if your pumping extreme weight. an example of a plan could be, chest, arms and thighs on monday, back, abs and calves on tuesday, cardio on wed. thursday repeat mon, etc...and never work chest and back together.

[BKJ1216]

No I don't think your suposed to work the smae muscles each day. I think your suposed to give them day to regroup and rest before you work them out again.

[Tombstone]

The reason behind it the best I can explain it:

 

Lifting weights pulls and stretches your muscles. Progress comes from when your resting and the muscles are healing. Without rest they can't heal and you won't see any results.

[Jack]

Nevermind 24-48 hours, if you're weightlifting properly you should give one week's break between a workout for each muscle. For example,

 

Monday - Chest/Tricep

 

Wednesday - Back/Bicep

 

Friday - Legs/Shoulders

 

or

 

Mon - Chest, Tricep

 

Tue - Back, Bicep

 

Thu - Shoulders, Traps

 

Fri - Legs

[Tombstone]

Thats basically my workout Jack

 

My days are different but you nailed it

[Jack]

Hehe - they're pretty basic Weightlifting splits but its good to see you using them!

[Maestro]

Well, not to be a jerk, but I would disagree w/Jack. If you are eating and sleeping properly you should not need a week's recovery. If you are training properly, muscles should recover in a day or two, and hypertrophy (size gain, although not necessarily noticeable) should occur by the second day. After this, the results begin to level off and gains are decreased. 48-72 hours between groups produces very good results because it keeps you on that steep gain curve that takes place in roughly the first three days.

 

Also it depends on what type of lifting you are doing. If you're doing power lifting (like 5 sets of five reps near max) then you need to be careful about how fast you're adding weight to your sets. Your muscles will get stronger much faster than your tendons, and this can lead to serious injury--like muscle ripping clean off the bone. I have seen it happen. (if this is the way you're lifting, drop me a PM, there are things you can do to make it safe without waiting forever to recover)

 

Also #2, if you are lifting every day, then that will effect individual muscles too. I mean, if you do upper body on mon, then legs on tues, arms on weds....your arms won't recover as quick as if you hadn't done legs, so keep that in mind.

 

BTW, how old are you? That makes a big difference too. When you're younger, like 13-18, you recover much, much faster than if you are older. I'm guessing you're in high school, so I would say one week is way longer than you need to recover and rebuild.

[PhilM1]

alright, well im 16 and i am in high school. its hard to keep a steady weight scheduale being my class but i havent been consistant all the time ive been in it. sometimes i look really ripped and others i just look not like i have a little muscle. i only weigh 127 but i can bench 135. i dont look ripped at all. i try to do 1 set of my max, go down one or two steps and to one set of that , and then go down pretty low to get in some muscle tone and do a set of that. it doesnt even look like i have shoulders, i have built my lower neck with shoulder shrugs but my shoulders are weak as hell. i cant seem to find anything that will bulk my shoulders. my other problem is one day in weights i did triceps(max) bench(max) lat pull downs and burnouts on the leverage bar. my shoulder pulled. ever since then i cant get any good work outs in because my shoulder starts to go. what can i do about this?

[Maestro]

Well, that all depends on how your shoulder went out. Are we talking pulled muscle, torn ligament, pinched nerve, cartilage damage?

 

Well, as you've seen, shrugs will give you big traps, but I take it you're talking more like "wide" shoulders? For this you need to be hitting your deltiods. Military-press is real good (but be careful with your back). Do military press both with dumbells and a barbell, dumbells are the best, I think. Also upright flys--stand with dumbells at your side and lift them out. Do sets lifting out to the side, and also lifting out to the front. Don't lift the weight above shoulder level (arm parallel with ground) as it is bad for your shoulders. Probably the best after military press is upright rows. Use a curling bar and hold it at the narrow grips, with your palms facing you. You then lift the weight up to your chin. The bar should stay close to your chest and your elbows should come up as you do this, but don't bring them past parallel with the floor. Also there are deltoids that wrap around from the back, so exercises pulling up and back like rows will also help give you wider shoulders. If you can do 'em, handstand pushups are good too (lean against a wall) To hit the front of our shoulders, there is one exercise that I absolutely love. If you have a tricep bar, use that: lay on a bench, start with the weight on your stomach, keep your elbows close in to your body and push up.