Recovery is Everything!

Rest and Recovery is a must!

Up until now, we have discussed the how to build the most muscle from your workouts.  The other side of the coin is allowing your body to recover from the workout.  An often neglected but vital component of achieving the results you want is recovery.  With the type of high intensity training that is required for worthwhile results, you also need the proper amount of rest.  It has been proven that the overall system (Brain, Muscles, Joints) needs a minimum of 48hrs rest between workouts. 

Now you may be thinking, “What if we split up the body parts and only did a workout for the Chest/Shoulder/Triceps on one day, and Back/Biceps/Legs on another?”  In this case the overall system still will be taxed and recovery still will not take place.  No muscle growth will be happen.  The body works as one integrated unit, when you sleep the whole system sleeps.  When you eat, the whole system eats.  You're body doesn't go, I think I'll take this meal I just ate and only give it to my Chest/Shoulders/Triceps.  Makes no sense!

How can you tell if you’re getting enough recovery?  You have to examine the progressions you are making with your strength gains workout to workout.  Each set/rep/weight of every exercise of the workouts needs to be logged.  If the style of performance is equal (tempo, form, rest periods) then a comparison can be made.  If in each workout you are gaining in weights and/or reps then you are probably getting enough rest between workouts.  If you are not progressing every single workout, then you need to take more rest between workouts.  Two or three workouts per week on non consecutive days are all that is needed for the best possible results.  In fact if you worked out more, you'd actually get less results!