How Long Should You Wait to Train a Muscle Again?

It's often said muscles take 48-72 hours to recover from a training session. But must we always wait this duration if the aim to muscle hypertrophy and strength?

0:00 Intro
0:51 Part I: 24 Hours vs 48-72 Hours of Rest
2:45 Part II: Training Frequency Science
4:59 Part III: Fatigue & Recovery
8:16 Part IV: Summary

References:

Music:

[HouseofHypertrophy]

Hey All! - PATREON PAGE:

0:00 Intro

0:51 Part I: 24 Hours vs 48-72 Hours of Rest
2:45 Part II: Training Frequency Science
4:59 Part III: Fatigue & Recovery
8:16 Part IV: Summary

[nomaderic]

At this point I just listen to my body. My body gives me signs that I need to take it a little easier today, or if I can go hard.

[miniroll]

I think the big take away is that if you’re worried about losing gains from extra rest periods, don’t be. It’s worth experimenting with.

[The-Contractor]

I've been weight training for about 58 years now. "More is not better." and sometimes "Less is more." holds true in many instances. It seems the most neglected aspect of many physical fitness routines is the "Mind-Body" connection. When I train, I'm not listening to music, thinking what I have to do later ... my focus is exclusively on what I am doing and how I am doing it. Stay in the moment for a lifetime of quality fitness training. Just ran across this channel. Liked and Subscribed.

[mastermindrational]

Right now I switched from daily to every other day training to training once every 4 days, as suggested by Mike Mentzer. This has brought amazing results for me. It’s nuts to think training less often brought better results but they did.

[beastG]

This is quite literally the MOST underrated fitness channel on the whole YT. Good luck for the future!

[Gkiss]

Years ago, I used to train most days. Now, I only do about 2-3 days/week, but much more intensely with longer sessions. I notice more muscle growth for me with this second method.

[peterscott]

I wouldn't call the 24 hour group that. It was really the 24h-120h group. Because after the three consecutive days, they then had 5 days of rest.

[muscleweb]

I’ve been training since the mid nineties. My experience is genetics is everything and your training program will revolve around it. For the genetically blessed group, waiting 1 or 2 days between workouts is usually doable, unless lifting in a HIT fashion, which will require waiting the full 2 days. For the genetically average person, a 24 hour recovery period will be right on the edge, and after about the first year of training will probably not be enough. For the un-genetically blessed group, commonly referred to as hardgainers, then a minimum 3 days recovery time seems to work well. I fall somewhere between the average and hardgainer group, so I find working out every 3rd day works best for me, and full body workouts comprised of basic large muscle group movements have delivered the best results. Additionally, when doing small muscle group movements like biceps, triceps, and deltoids, go for movements that involve more muscle stretch, but use caution and stay away from the ones that over articulate your shoulder joints.

[jeffreywingham]

Those close frequencies only held me back. Not until I went to training every 72 hours did I start to put on serious muscle.

[Edgycoo]

ive never gotten good results via increased frequency. I am highly trained, meaning i have trained for years and years and am generally, seemingly, maxed out on strength for my build. But training more frequently does not seem to push me through to the next level in either size or strength. I personally think you inherently know, after years of working out what works for you. You will probably gravitate towards this style of training naturally.

[GarageDwellerPat]

I'm 43 and have been consistently lifting for about 25 years. Over the past few years, my work schedule has been four days on (12+ hours/day) four days off. I can't go to the gym on my work days so I lift on my days off. So I hit one muscle group every 8 days. I have never seen better results. I basically follow a HIT system nowadays. It works perfectly for my lifestyle.

[cnwil]

I am a former athlete, and I have been into fitness since I was 9 years old. In my case, I only weight train 2 or 3 times a week since I do full body. I definitely need recovery or rest 48 hours or more. The body is very complex.

[robertspence]

Great content, as usual. It would be great if the research community would perform recovery studies for those of us over 50 who still train hard. There are some studies of older populations but they focus more on gym activities for health and not bodybuilding.

[futureskipper]

I'm still convinced that intensity is the key and have always made the best gains from training every muscle directly once a week, 4 x 45-50 mins per week in the gym should be more than enough.Absolutely no point in doing for instance 20 sets per week for biceps and being in the gym for hours and hours, a couple of intense sets to failure will stimulate muscle growths and avoids you digging a deep hole you won't properly recover from anyway (let alone build some muscle on top of that). If you even think about training a muscle group, let's say chest, 3 times a week you are training nowhere near intense enough.

[jayceeleon]

I always usually take 1-2 day of rest after 1 day of working out and I do labor intensive work from Mon - Friday and one week I decided to work out everyday without rest to see if I could get bigger more quickly and I injured my shoulders and back I would say I overtrained and learned the hard way that REST is extremely important

[MarcosAG]

Wow this channel would in fact be a golden mine of research content for anyone doing their PhD. Congrats man

[alphamale]

I’m approaching 76. I think that I will stay with 48 hours between full body workouts.

[CrimsonRose]

I do a full body workout every other day and I’m happy 🤷🏻‍♀️ Granted I’m not a body builder or anything I mainly do it for my mental health. It keeps me sane.

[Golabekrafts]

I think something important to note is that the 3 sessions per week still allowed 4 days of rest before returning to the 3 consecutive days of training. There are people who think that 24hrs rest and returning to the same muscle group will be fine even if you train it 7x/week, you will run into issues eventually