How Much Rest Between Workouts Is Too Much?

The optimal rest time between workouts, crucial for maximizing the rebuilding process, is 48-72 hours. If this period is shortened, your muscles won’t have sufficient time to recover, potentially hindering your progress.

Conversely, if the rest period is extended, the additional strength and muscle you’ve gained could be at risk of reversal.

Over the past three decades, I’ve worked with hundreds of bodybuilders, athletes, and hobbyist personal training clients. I’ve seen firsthand the effectiveness of different workout frequencies. I’ve experimented with everything from working a muscle group daily to hitting it once every 14 days.

In this article, I’ll break down the ideal rest time between workouts to help you identify the sweet spot to maximize your gains. Here’s what we’ll cover:

• Importance of rest days
• What if you have too much rest between workouts?
• What is super-compensation and why does it matter?
• Find your ideal frequency
• The signs of insufficient or excessive rest
• 5 Tips for planning your workout schedule to ensure adequate recovery

Importance of Rest Days

Rest days are not just a break from your workout routine but a crucial part of it. They are the key to achieving your workout goals. During your time away from the gym, muscle tissue recovery and repair occur, leading to hypertrophy and strength gains. However,  many people do not allow their muscles time to recuperate.

When you train a muscle group with insufficient rest between workouts, you risk hindering your progress, damaging ligaments, preventing the muscle from rehealing, and potentially weakening your immune system. You must be aware of these risks to ensure you give your body the rest it needs.

After the workout, your body is in a catabolic state. That means that it is breaking down protein. Your cortisol levels are also much higher than usual, causing stress to your system. Your muscle fibers have experienced microscopic damage from your resistance workout. This stimulates a repair process known as muscle protein synthesis. New muscle proteins are created to replace those damaged during the workout.

Several physiological processes start in the hours and days after the workout to completely repair and rebuild the damaged muscle fibers. Here’s an overview:

• Inflammation: The inflammatory response kicks in immediately after you have stressed the muscle. It brings immune cells to the affected muscle to start the repair process.
• Protein Synthesis: The body increases its synthesis of muscle proteins. Satellite cells fuse with the damaged muscle fibers, donating their nuclei to rebuild and repair them.
• Nutrient Delivery: Protein synthesis relies upon nutrients, particularly amino acids. An hour or two after the workout, you should consume protein-rich foods or supplements. Carbohydrates are also needed to restore depleted glycogen levels.
• Hormonal Response: Key hormones, such as testosterone, growth hormone, and insulin, regulate muscle protein synthesis. Insulin, for example, facilitates the uptake of amino acids into muscle cells.

During your rest days, your body can focus on repairing the damaged tissues and restoring your body’s energy levels. If you train the muscle again before the protein synthesis process has been completed, your muscles will not be able to get bigger and stronger. In fact, they will progressively get weaker.

Training a muscle before it fully recovers will also put you at risk of injury. A damaged muscle is more vulnerable to stress and strain. You’ll also experience diminished workout performance, as your muscles won’t be able to generate as much force as if they were fully recovered.

Training a muscle before it is recovered can also lead to overtraining. Symptoms of overtraining include:

• Constant fatigue
• Impaired performance
• Lack of interest in training
• Increased susceptibility to illness

You will never be able to build muscle unless you provide your body with the rest it needs to revolver between workouts. Training too frequently will also cause hormonal imbalance. Your cortisol levels will be heightened. This hormone, well known for its ability to increase stress levels, harms protein synthesis. So, the higher your cortisol levels, the less likely you are to build new muscle.

What If You Have Too Much Rest Between Workouts?

If you allow too much time between workouts, your muscles won’t receive enough stimulation to adapt. Your gains will start to diminish as muscle protein synthesis decreases, which may lead to a loss of muscle tissue.

If you rest too long between workouts, the strength gains you have achieved from previous workouts may also diminish. The neuromuscular adaptations driving strength gains will regress, so you cannot move beyond your lifting limits.

Ideally, you want your workouts to progress in a stair-step fashion. You allow sufficient time for muscle protein synthesis to complete rebuilding the damaged tissue, and then you have your next workout before the dip occurs, which signals regression.

This comes about through intelligent timing of the super-compensation phase of recovery.

What is Super-Compensation, and Why Does it Matter?

Super-compensation is the scientific name for the process by which your muscles rebuild slightly bigger and stronger than they were before your workout. Your body does this as part of its general adaptation to stress response to meet and deal with a similar stress level in the future.

Super-compensation starts with the fatigue caused by your workout. Your training needs to be intense enough to push your muscles to a level of stress that it isn’t used to. This is what will cause microtears in your muscle fiber.

Next comes recuperation in the 12-24 hours after the workout. This requires adequate nutrition, sleep, and rest to repair the damaged tissue, replenish muscle energy levels, and remove waste products from the muscle cells.

Once your body has returned to a state of homeostasis, where it is back as it was before your workout, it pushes slightly further into super-compensation territory. Your muscles become slightly stronger and bigger, and your cardio efficiency and endurance increase.

To illustrate what’s happening here, imagine a storm battering against your house. The wind becomes so strong that it blows out your window. So, to prevent this from happening again, you decide to replace the smashed window with a double-glazed version. It’s stronger and will withstand similar stress in the future.

That is precisely what your body is doing.

The difference with your body’s super-compensation is that timing is critical. If you don’t time your next workout correctly, your gains from the super-compensation process will diminish.

Ideally, you should work on the muscle gain within 24 hours of the culmination of the super-compensation phase. That will lead to the stairstep effect we all want without a workout, where we are constantly increasing our strength and muscle levels.

If you wait too long before working the muscle again, your progress will flatline as your body retreats to its pre-workout levels of strength and muscularity. As a result, you’ll find yourself in a training plateau.

Find Your Ideal Rest Frequency

Based on my experience and the body’s physiological processes, the general recommendation is to allow 48-72 hours of rest between workouts. However, we are all different, so individual variation will occur. (1)

I’ve trained bodybuilders who have experienced their best gains training a muscle group three times per week or every second day. Others have found their sweet spot in terms of volume to be once per week. Admittedly, the once-per-week guys used a higher training volume, but their gains still defiled logic regarding the super-compensation phases.

My point here is that you should take the 48-72-hour guide as a reference and then experiment to see how your body best reacts. Train a muscle group twice per week for around eight weeks. Then, experiment with it once per week for a similar period. Finally, train the muscle group three times a week for another eight weeks.

When you do this type of experiment, you will have objective data about how your body reacts, which will help you determine what training frequency is best for you.

Signs of Insufficient or Excessive Rest

As you experiment with training frequency, you need to be aware of the signs of insufficient or excessive rest. Of course, you’ll check which frequency leads to the best muscle and strength gains. However, you should also be looking for the following signs:

Signs of Insufficient Rest

• Persistent muscle soreness: Feeling sore for an extended period after a workout can indicate that your muscles haven’t fully recovered. While some soreness is normal, especially after intense workouts or when trying new exercises, persistent soreness that doesn’t improve over time suggests inadequate recovery. (2)
• Decreased performance: If you notice a decline in your performance during workouts, such as struggling to lift the same weight or complete the same number of repetitions, it could be a sign that your muscles haven’t had enough time to recover and rebuild.
• Fatigue and low energy levels: Overtraining can lead to general fatigue and low energy levels during workouts and throughout the day. If you consistently feel drained and exhausted, it may be a sign that you’re not allowing your muscles enough recovery time.
• Plateau or regression in progress: No matter how hard you train, you can’t advance beyond your last workout’s strength or muscle development.

Signs of Excessive Rest

• Loss of strength: If your body has extended beyond the super-compensation phase before you work the muscle again, you will experience a detraining effect. This will, at best, keep you stuck on your existing max weight or, at worst, weaken you.
• Loss of muscle: Waiting too long before working the muscle again will begin to reverse the super-compensation muscle gains you’ve made.
• Increased stiffness and reduced flexibility: If your muscles feel stiff and your range of motion decreases, it could be a sign that you’re too infrequently training your muscles.

5 Tips for Planning Your Workout Schedule to Ensure Adequate Recovery

Here is how to boost your recovery:

1. Include Rest Days

Schedule at least one day per week when you are not working out at all. This gives your central nervous system time to recover. On your off-day, you can do some light active recovery, such as going for a hike or playing a round of golf.

2. Alternate Muscle Groups

If you’re doing a split routine program, allow at least 48 hours between working a muscle group. So, you might work your chest and triceps on Monday and Thursday, your back and biceps on Tuesday and Friday, and your legs and shoulders on Wednesday and Saturday. Sunday would be your off day.

3. Listen to Your Body

Be tuned in to how your body feels during and after training. Constant fatigue, muscle soreness, and impaired performance may indicate that you need more rest.

4. Prioritize Sleep and Nutrition

Plan to get 7-9 hours of sleep each night to support muscle growth and repair. Fuel your body with lean proteins, complex carbs, and healthy fats to boost recovery and growth.

5. Gradually Increase Intensity

You need to progressively overload a muscle for it to get bigger and stronger. This should be done gradually to promote proper recovery and avoid injury. Make incremental changes in load and volume to give your body time to adapt and recover.

Wrap Up

Most people experience their best gains with 48-72 hours of rest between workouts for a muscle group. This allows for complete recovery while also allowing the super-compensation process to take place. As a result, your body will be slightly bigger and stronger than it was before the workout.

Keep in mind, though, that every individual is unique. So, what works for me might not work for you. That is why you should experiment with frequencies from once to three times per week to find out your sweet spot. Give yourself eight weeks at each frequency, and carefully monitor how your body responds.

When you find your ideal training frequency, structure your workout plan around it. Then, if you train hard, you must take optimal rest, get plenty of sleep, and feed your body the nutrients it needs. You’ll be rewarded with ongoing strength and muscle gains.

References

1. Schoenfeld, B. J., Ogborn, D., & Krieger, J. W. (2016). Effects of Resistance Training Frequency on Measures of Muscle Hypertrophy: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.), 46(11), 1689–1697. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-016-0543-8
2. Cheung, K., Hume, P., & Maxwell, L. (2003). Delayed onset muscle soreness : treatment strategies and performance factors. Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.), 33(2), 145–164. https://doi.org/10.2165/00007256-200333020-00005

Stay on top of the latest fitness news and updates by adding Fitness Volt to your Google News feed: You can also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube for even more content.