Sunday, January 11, 2009

The Importance of 48 Hours

Well, this blog is about nutrition and fitness. I think I'm going to try to alternate between talking about nutritional value and a fitness regimes. Since, I talked about the importance of bell peppers yesterday...I think I'm going to discuss the importance of strength training today. Strength training is important because it helps you lose weight and speeds up your metabolism. In order to get the maximum benefit of strength training, I suggest resting your muscles groups for 48 hours between work outs. Now this topic is highly debatable. There are several good arguments that have a basis to say that waiting 24 hours between work outs is more then enough; however, there is also the argument that your body needs 48 hours. I tend to lean towards the 48 hours. The reason I suggest 48 hours is because strength training is exhausting. A)You put all your effort into it, and B) you are also tearing your muscles. Now, thinking about those two different aspects...you may see why I suggest 48 hours.

Firstly, strength training can literally take a good hour and that is if your only focusing on one muscle group. For instance, your upper body. You have your biceps, triceps, lats, shoulders, pectorals, and deltoids...just to name a few. If you were going to work out all of these muscles with your utmost effort, you would be too exhausted to put in the same amount of energy into your abs work out that same day. So, for that reason its best to separate working out your upper body, lower body, and abs/back on different days.

Secondly, your tearing your muscles a part. During working out, you rip your muscles a part, but they adapt and will grow. Our muscles are able to grow and accept the overload that we place on them during strength training because we allow them time to heal. Like anything, time is the best medicine. Our muscles are fatigued, torn, and need to be fed with the proper nutrients (protein) in order to grow stronger and more resilient.

Therefore, I suggest a 48 hour time period between each muscle group, this way you can put your utmost effort into the work out, allow your muscles to heal, and to feed the muscle with the essential nutrients it needs to develop stronger.

2 comments:

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  2. (Sorry- typo in first attempt)...

    Very good advice! I do some form of cardio pretty much every morning, but in the evenings I do upper body strength training and abs on Monday, lower body on Tuesday, cardio only on Wednesday, then back to upper body on Thursday, Fridays are OFF, and weekends usually consist of just a long, outdoor run one day and lower body strength training the other. Now that I've read your article, I'm thinking of putting my abs workouts on my cardio days, (like Wednesday and a weekend day), instead of having them with my upper body days. Thanks! :)

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