muscles ache - rest or workout ?

[Nicholars]

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If a muscle hurts the next day its because it is fatugued and you worked it. It takes 48 hours to repair so training it the next day is pointless and will hamper gains. However if it aches for days 3+ on end you likely over trained and hurt your CNS!

48 hours is a bit of a generalised under estimate... if you are training quite heavy and doing quite a lot of volume then 4-7 days is better depending on things like diet, sleep and rest and general health/recovery ability.

[Curtis00]

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48 hours is a bit of a generalised under estimate... if you are training quite heavy and doing quite a lot of volume then 4-7 days is better depending on things like diet, sleep and rest and general health/recovery ability.

Its the CNS that needs to recovere though and mentally. The muscle is always quick to repair.

edit; I agree it all depoends on rest and sleep though!

[Rob-40]

Some great replies there guys, thank very much for all your input. I have been training now for 4 weeks but have been taking it easy building up slow and working out slow, but yesterday I decided to do my workout a little faster and built up the weights each set. hence my aches of the muscles today. I think I will take a couple days rest to recover. Even thoe most people in the gym say its the best time to workout when ya feel sore.

[Tomskiii]

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48 hours is a bit of a generalised under estimate... if you are training quite heavy and doing quite a lot of volume then 4-7 days is better depending on things like diet, sleep and rest and general health/recovery ability.

I think it really depends on how much you do and what you adapt to (perhaps stating the obvious), because i can squat heavy monday and friday and light on a wednesday and be pretty much recovered by the next session (and easily by the next heavy session). For 5 sets pretty much.

But when i used to only train legs once a week and do 20/30 sets it would definetly take me 4-7 days to recover.

[Nicholars]

Yeh I would say if you are doing 7-10 working sets for a bodypart and going 1 rep before failure then 4 days is about right....

Obviously depends on the things I said earlier... AFAIK though it takes 48 hours for the musle to recover but longer to compensate in anticipation of another heavy load...

Which backs up my post I made a couple of months ago where I basically did very little for a month after having trained consistantly for over 2 years and I actually gained about a stone of weight probably over half of which was muscle.

[Tomskiii]

Yeah perhaps not as extreme but i've had several occasions where i've missed a week or two of training and hit all PB's on returning. Its also amazing how much i find i miss the gym after about 5 days off

[Nicholars]

I cant remember who it was but one of the top trainers said the first thing he does when he takes on a new client is tell them to have 3 weeks off and eat loads.

[polky]

In my opinion if it hurts that's your bodies way of telling you not to hit it again until it doesn't hurt! The body is pretty good at telling you what is going on. Obviously the first few times you go everything will hurt much more but after you ease into a routine you'll find that things don't ache so much unless you hit a truely monsterous session.

I try not to isolate the same muscle groups within 3 days. However clearly your triceps are being used for both chest days and shoulder days. You just have to be sensible and listen to your body!

I know this is quite general advice but it's v hard to state in black and white what you should and shouldn't do cos it depends on the individual in terms of diet, age, whether it is DOMS and of course your CNS functioning. You are the only one who knows what kind of pain you are in!

Hope that's useful in some way!