Dudes opinion on everyday training? girls can chime in to I guess?

[beastman88]

so going to step up my game a big time. sort of set up a home gym for myself after moving back to my moms ugh, dont even ask. so i do squats, bench/incline press, arm/preacher curls, leg curls, quad extensions, pushups, flys every morning. i dont really go until muscle failure i just want to get that shredded look and keep my muscles nice and loose and toned. what are your thoughts on everyday strength training?

[Anonymous]

"loose and toned"... you realize these are the opposites of each other? lol I think you meant to say tight bodied and toned.

Anyway, you don't want to overtrain (I'm not sure how hard you train each day). I go to the gym 5 days a week for about 1.5 hours each session, with rest days on the weekend. Many people think that the more you train, the quicker you see results and whatnot. While this may be true to an extent, you don't want to do it constantly just because you feel like it will speed things up just that much more. You have to let your body rest too, because that's when the muscle growth happens anyway.

And if you want to be toned, you need to check your diet and be sure that you're eating as lean as possible. If your body is getting a dirty diet of just whatever you happen to eat (called a "see food" diet), then it's likely that your body will just pack away any excess as fat. And fat covers up muscle and puts you 2 steps back from where you started.

If you do cardio or something like anaerobic exercise, this is a great way to supplement your weight training with excess calorie burning to slim down as much as your body will allow. Everyone has muscle tone and a six pack... it's just that not everyone has low enough body fat to actually make those muscles show.

[Rail2k]

How about that cardio? You can build up your muscles all you want, but cardio is going to be what really helps you get definition.

[beastman88]

i cycle everyday usually

[Rail2k]

More of a runner myself, but as long as you're burning energy/fat as well as building muscle you should be fine.

[just_tired]

Training every day is not a good idea. Rest is an important part of growing muscle mass, If you don't want too much of it you can do strength training. Heavier weights and fewer reps. Then you're working more on your nervous system and less on your muscles. As for toning, it's just a code word for losing fat so diet needs to be in check and maybe some low intensity cardio in the morning before breakfast.