I've heard you have to let your body rest between workouts in order for you muscles to recuperate?

Question

I weight train every other day and run every day. Does the running inhibit my muscle recovery? Should I just run every other day?

Answer 1

Depends on your age, base training, and overall health. And what are your goals, marathons, body building, or good health? If you have a specific goal or talent, a coach can surely help you develop that talent. Myself, I used the gym to tone a little and to warm up to run.

Here's a summation of all I have read about the subject and my experience. I think the teachings are and have been for a long time that you should weight train no more than every other day.

About the running - I ran almost every day for many years. It is okay to run every day IF you take 1 day a week to rest, and avoid overuse. Looking back at every illness and injury, I attribute to long periods of running without a day of rest. Overuse occurs in any form from illness to injury.

I don't think running inhibits your muscle recovery unless you do excessive quad and hamstring in the gym, in which case, you are doubling workouts on your legs that I would discourage. In fact, running probably speeds up the flusihing out of lactic acid that builds up with weights.

Remember that weight training shortens your muscles and running tends to lengthen your muscles.

Bottom line is this. eat right, take vitamins, listen to your body, get plenty of rest. Never forget that a good day of rest is as good as a day of training. GOOD LUCK.

Answer 2

You will be fine with the running as long as you take a break at some point, I run 6-10 miles 5 days a week plus train and aerobics. If you find that you have lactic acid build up, just take a cool bath, your muscles will recover. Sounds like your doing fine, and all the right stuff. You do need to take a break once in a while. Try and make like Sundays your chill day. You will just fine.

Answer 3

You do have to let your muscles recover. If you overtrain, this inhibits muscle growth and you may be more prone to muscle injury.

There is a lot of debate about this, but an hour of workouts 3-4 times a week is actually a lot though sometimes it may not seem like it. I would only run every other day.

Answer 4

It takes 24 hours to restore the fibers but not the tares when you worked out, thats a good question but if you workout everyday, only 2 of those workouts would count because your body will become so tired and your muscle wouldnt have time to rest up.

Answer 5

Never weight train the same muscle group two days in a row. I think cardio every day is fine, but I would take a break now and then. It's a big toll on your body. Every other day is plenty to keep yourself in top shape.

Answer 6

What you're looking at is two different kinds of excersise. Weight training tears apart any muscels you train (at least if you do it right) and those muscels need time to rebuild and become larger. Running burns calories but can be a strain on legs. So if you are heavily weight training your lower body, it might be a good idea to cut back on running.

Answer 7

I do cardio everytime I work out. Do an upper body workout one day, then lower body the next and usually Sundays off from everything.

I was told not to work the same muscles everyday because they need time to heal in order to build.

Answer 8

For optimal progress, consider doing 5 runs a week. Your strength training sounds right on target!

You may also consider, if you like, 4 runs a week and 3 days weight training.

Either way, I must tell you, your regimen is inspiring!

Have fun!

Answer 9

Good question... I'm not experienced enough to answer the training part but definitely eat a lot of protein and amino acid supplements. This will speed the recovery.

Answer 10

It sounds like you exercise too much you only need to work out three times a week, over doing it can cause severe risks to your health, and your muscles need to rest other wise you could strain them.