Think of resting your muscles between workouts the same way you think of resting after a busy day. Consider this: you arise at 6:00 a.m., pick up the house for 30 minutes before having breakfast and going to work where you stand on your feet all day. After work, you run an hour's worth of errands and finally go home. But, rather than sitting down to rest, you just keep going. You wash the windows, scrub the floors, vacuum, wash the car, and the list goes on and on. The point is that you don't sit down to rest, even after everything you've accomplished all day. Does resting your muscles between workouts make more sense now?
What Happens to Muscles When You Exercise
When you exercise, you incur very small fissures or tears in the muscle. In essence, you damage (slightly) the muscles. When you take the next day or two off from working that particular muscle group, you allow your muscles to heal and thus increase in size and power. If you do not allow time for this healing to occur, your muscles may remain in a constant state of damage.
Rest Your Muscles
Your muscles need to have a day of rest just like you need to take time to rest after having a lot of activity. But why do your muscles need to rest? The fact is that your muscles utilize the resting time as an opportunity to build more mass. The resting time you provide for your muscles to recuperate is as necessary as your time spent working out.
Over-training
There is a phenomenon called "over-training" which occurs when a person does not avail oneself of rest time and thus over-trains his/her muscles. The muscles simply stay in a state of damage as they are not given resting time as an opportunity to repair. Allowing recuperation is probably the most important step in building larger and stronger muscles. Otherwise, the muscles are over-trained and simply not allowed time to rebuild and strengthen.
It is not unusual for people who over-train to become lethargic, feel fatigued and even get sick more frequently. So, allowing your muscles time to rest between your workouts is an important step to gaining more and stronger muscle.
Structuring Your Workouts
Most fitness experts agree that the muscle groups you work should be alternated from day to day. If you work upper body muscles on Monday, don't work them again before Wednesday. In fact, some fitness experts claim that you should wait 48 hours before you work them again, which means you would not do upper body work again until Thursday in this example. Of course, you could work your lower body on Tuesday or Wednesday. Plus, feel free to do cardio training on the days you are resting a muscle group.
Understanding what happens to your muscles when you work out and when you rest is important to how you conduct your workouts. Over-training is never a good idea and can cause more harm than progress in meeting fitness goals. Finally, structure your workouts to allow muscles time to recuperate and build. Taking time to rest your muscles might be the key to a healthier, more muscular you.