Working out every day?

Question

I usually do 5 sets of 25 push-ups throughout the day, and around 4 sets of 50 crunches. I also get about 12 minutes of running on a treadmill at 5 mph, and on the weekdays about 40 minutes of P.E. Is this too much? Not enough? My friend said that working out every day was bad, but is my routine even enough to be considered working out?

Answer 1

It's glad to see you are actually doing something, but you could almost be wasting your time. Don't get me wrong-any activity is a plus in my eyes. But, if you want to get rewarded for your efforts, i suggest you change things up. If you do this workout for a long period of time, eventually you will stop seeing results. Doing 5 sets of 25 reps of pushups everyday will eventually wear thin, and moreover, you probably aren't building much muscle. My guess is that your body has adapted to this already. Moreover, I would recommend doing more compound movements. Doing isolation bicep curls, for example, can only get a person so far. It's too small of a movement. For example, if someone does db curls with 30lb weights, your arms are seeing a resistance of 30lbs (obviously, right?). But, if you incorporate the barbell bent over row, which say, you did 65 lbs, that's an additional 35lbs your biceps must fight through. Essentially, you are going to want to include bigger movements in your workouts, including the squat, deadlift, barbell bent over row, pullups/chinups, seated row, military press, and bench press. I would try changing up your routine to something like this: For larger movements like the squat, deadlift, bench press, and pullups, try 4 sets of 4-6 reps. This will work on your strength, rather than hypertrophy and endurance type training that 12 reps uses. Rest 2-3 minutes in between these sets. For the less compound movements, such as your bicep curl, seated row, military press, and dips, try 3-4 sets of 6-8 reps. For these, rest 60-90 seconds. Always try to keep your body guessing what you're throwing at it. But keep this in mind, too: your central nervous system is greatly impacted by weight training (or stress, lack of sleep, psychological stress,). Let me explain...your CNS is what controls the movements of your muscles, and like anything else, it too needs to rest and recover. So, if you are doing heavy movements on a tuesday, such as squat, deadlift, heavy lunges, and some leg curls, your nervous system has to help fire those muscles. Now, if you go in to the gym the following day, your CNS hasn't had enough time to recover, so you probably won't see great results on your bench press or pullups. Even though your chest muscles feel fresh to lift, your CNS is still fatigued from your heavy lifting day on monday. Keep this in mind when structuring your program. Remember, the heavier the movements, and the more weight lifted, the more stress you place on your CNS. hope this helps!

Answer 2

If you're not feeling any of the adverse effects of over-training (headache, fatigue, aches and pains) then your routine might be OK for you. I've been working out with weights for years and when you do muscle building exercises, you are supposed to give your body at least 48 hrs rest between workouts. I give my muscles anywhere from 5-7 days off because I train each muscle group very hard and on different days. You might benefit by resting more between each push-up regimen. Take a day off and see what happens, maybe the added rest will give your muscles more time to recover and promote more muscle growth. It's good to change things up and keep your muscles guessing, to prevent plateauing and to break the monotony, but don't completely abandon a good routine that's proved to be effective or you'll backslide. Just tweak your workouts a bit from time to time (Example: new routine one week, old routine the next).

Answer 3

I don't think there's a thing wrong with working out everyday, I do. Some people just find it hard to fit that much into their schedule.

-S

Answer 4

do it every other day..do different things on each day to build up ur muscle mass in different places

Answer 5

Yea your routine is not that much of one. If you trained with weights, that would be another story.

Answer 6

Try changing it up. For starters doing the same thing over and over and not varying your workout wont get you long term desirable results.

Try alternating the cardio (running and whatever) with muscle exercises, like your push-ups, ab workout and add in light weights.

It isn't really too much, just make sure you are consuming the calories and protein your body needs if you are going to work out all the time.