6 days on 1 day off?

[Razz]

Hello everyone

I've been thinking that the whole deal about having to take one day off per week is designed to fit our modern 7 day/week pattern. Personally I've done up to like 20 days without a break and really didn't feel more than slightly overreached. I'm thinking of doing this again now but with more intense trainings. What are your experiences and or thoughts on this subject?

Ps. had no idea in which forum to put this, feel free to move it.

[Alessandro Mainente]

i think depends from your level of conditioning...with the wod you put the stress on thifferent muscles in different days.

maybe in this way you can training 4 days a week without problems beacause you muscles can restore themselves and you put a very great stress on some muscles only one day a week.

i'm training like you since 3 months ago, now i notice that every 6-7 weeks i usually do a week where i use only the 50% of my wheight for every exercise or i scale the workout, in this way my physique does not suffer more stress.

the risk is fall in overtraining...just you see that the progress are stopping and your stregth does not increase maybe it it the time to take off for a week...

another way is perform a hard training on 4 days per week and in the other ones a soft training...

the integration and supplementation in your meal can help to restore your energy and muscle...but does not do miracles

[Philip Chubb]

As long as you gradually build the intensity up to the level you want it to be, it isn't a problem. There are people who train often and 8 to 10 hours a day. Just remember to listen to your body. If you just aren't feeling it halfway through your training then don't hesistate to cut it short. Also, having a deload day every third workout can help. Work technique and lots of recovery like foam rolling or contrast baths.

[Michael Miskelly]

I came to this site from rosstraining.com. I had followed ross' style training mixing between explosive and maximal strength along with conditioning (HIIT) 6 days a week. Now I do the WOD on wed, thurs, sat, sun and HIIT conditioning on fridays and mondays. I am able to train effectively on everyday I train. Tuesday is my longest day at uni so I use it as a rest day.

[Aaron Griffin]

Downtime is important for you in non-physical ways too. Sometimes you need a stretch of time to not be in "go-go-go" mode.

[Razz]

Good points. I will try not to plan out any rest days and play by feeling. Still curious to hear about peoples experiences with this, not just theory

[Animalonfire]

As you asked:

I'm on 5/week at the moment. 3GB, one actual gymnastics and one Muay Thai. 10hrs sleep and 1g/lb protein (supplements vary with funding). If I stick to 5 then I'm pretty good, but if I miss as little as 30minutes sleep or delay a meal I instantly cease to be pleasant to be around, things cease to be fun, and I'm pretty sure my IQ takes a dive. If I try to add training I get everything from stomach upsets to insomnia to 4+ hour long blank stares, and several near vomit experiences from appetite loss. I'm beginning to wonder of one muay thai might be worth two floreio arts (recovery wise), and if making some tactical substitutions might be a good idea, but TBH I feel a bit sorry for my instructor, who has 3 students in his (good) class (although he takes other classes).

Anyway, if you can go every day than IMHO you should. I find that I often force my way through warm ups but by the end of them I feel good to go, if I still feel lazy/tired afterwards then it's time to take the rest of the week off. Also if I loose co-ordination (Ido has a basketball net in the background of some videos, I suspect for this purpose). Poliquin uses grip testing http://www.charlespoliquin.com/ArticlesMultimedia/Articles/Article/440/Monitoring_Overtraining_with_Grip_Testing.aspx

[Nicholas Sortino]

It is entirely possible. There are people that train 2xday six days a week and once on the 7th and don't suffer, and I am not talking light workouts. I am talking near maximal strength training. It takes a lot of things. You need a lot of sleep. You need a lot of calories. You need good calories. You need more sleep.

Most importantly though, you need to build into it. If I tried to do that right now, I would be injured within a week. If I slowly build up to over the course of the next year or two, I could easily be working out with high intensity 10xweek. But I would have to be very smart about it, making sure I don't add extra training too soon, that I eat more than enough quality food, and that I get plenty of rest (this would easily be my biggest hurdle, it is right now).

[Felipe]

even God himself rested on the 7th day!

I can't bring on personal experiences, apart from 5 day training for some months when I was 17 - didnt like, I feel exhausted and not improving.

Doing a simple quantitative evaluation, 1 / 7 is 14,2% of total week work. For reason explained in the 80/20 philosophy, that shouldnt be a problem at all.

Talking about the recovery process, resting for 24h will make your body use the extra time for better repairing (the body cannot fully recover in 24h from hard workouts, that's should be a fact but check it on training journals), enhancing extra progress on the following days. But all of this needs to be incorporated in a microcycle program.

Check out Practical Programming (one of the best book ever on training).

For tons of facts on everything training related (actually everything! is the only book of this type, while not very good to read in a linear way) check out Science of Sports Training by Thomas Kurz.

Some make the critic that it's an old text. The fact remains that it summarize the knowledge of decades of eastern successes, so it works. Maybe is not the best way, but neither is the worst and surely is the more time efficient.

For me it's more good than harm to do a full passive rest day, maybe is a little slower but still easier.

Oh and if you have something like extra energy inside you, do on the last day strength or endurance training at either max rep or max intensity. The next day you will surely relax

[Philip Chubb]

Well if you want experience, I personally built my work capacity the other way. Which is training hard and often. I didn't know a thing about rest and I was in the schools wrestling team plus doing my own MMA training. This ended up being 2.5 hours of training then a 3 mile walk to MMA where I would do another 3 to 5 hours all while not eating at all. It was miserable and depressing but at the end of it I eventually was able to workout all day and barely feel it. Now im building it a smarter way with gradual progression and listening to my body. If I feel like I am too tired. I take off and sleep and extra two hours. With this, I've been making progress at a very fast rate while still feeling good to go.

[Razz]

I'm just doing the ½ volume every 3-7 workouts now and then a few days off whenever I'm completely bombed

[AlexX]

People have gotten results from wildly different training parameters. All my knowledge is in terms of weightlifting strength training so maybe some think it doesn't apply but here are some examples.

- The "mythical" bulgarian method uses 2-3 workouts PER DAY! all done to the max of intensity, meaning you are maxing out every time. Sure people have said it because of steroids and blah blah but the point is that this methods produced world champions, steroids or not you don't get to world class level without a good training system.

- Sheiko method uses 3-4 full body workouts that last 3-4 hours at the advanced level. The intensity is reduced but the volume is ridiculous. In Boris Sheiko's method you can tell how advanced the trainee is not just by his competition maxes but how much volume he does during his workouts. Sheiko has produced countless world champions.

- Bill Starr/Tommy Konno's method - 3 workouts per week no more, total body and only one workout per week is done where you max out. The other two are a medium workout (90 percent of your max without increasing reps and 80 percent without increasing reps). The trainee usually does between 3-4 exercise which is pretty low in volume when comapred to other programs. Bill Starr and Tommy Konno were both champions in olympic weightlifting and Tommy Konno was THE champion, can't really say that this doesn't work as many world class powerlifters also swear by it.

There are literally countless other models there, these were just the most different from one another. My only real point is that you should try different things while listening to your body and always remember that the people at top usually end up developing systems that work for them the best. They do this by listening to their bodies and knowing how they adapt over YEARS of training. If you get the best gains by doing 6 workouts and 1 day off you are getting that much closer to mastering your body.

As for myself I really can't train hard for more than 4-5 weeks after that I get stale and performance starts dropping off. Once I got crazy and tried working out, against my better judgment, 5 times per week. This was the period during which I got the most injuries from training in my whole training life. My routine now most would laugh at my non-traditional set up but it's what allows me to make gains consistently without injury. Since I started using the steady state cycle my training cycles now take 8 or so weeks which is very long for me but the steady state cycle allows me to train longer, of course the parameters are widely changed as well but my set-up still remains pretty weird to most.

[Parth Rajguru]

As long as you gradually work your volume/frequency up, I can see it being done. Recently I suddenly increased the volume and was injured. I realized that if I want to increase gymnastic volume, I have to spend more time on joint prep and I have to ramp up the volume gradually.

I remember Ido Portal saying in a previous thread that work capacity is the most useful tool in the toolbox. I agree with that notion and I'm trying to increase my work capacity as well.

[Mikael Kristiansen]

As already said, people produce results with all kinds of programs. Of course, the more 'quality' training you do the better, so building up a good work capacity is alpha omega. In circus school we do up to 8 hours of training on all weekdays, plus more often than not, also some in the weekends. I have also had good results with training without a break for at least a month, but in general i try to listen to the body and take a break when i feel i need it.

With handbalancing i train, at least a little, almost 365 days a year. I have excellent work capacity for HS, since i have worked on them for a long time. If i would try to do the same with aerial straps(including a lot of rings), which i have done for only a year, i would be injured in no time. I am slowly increasing the training frequency and intensity. In this kind of situation, even with great work capacity, it is hard to stay sharp every day. I have experimented a lot with how to get the most out of the schedule, and staying away from working to failure is crucial. Less reps, with optimal form, with higher frequency seems to give me very quick gains both technically and strength-wise. For example, i train 1 arm presses every day if im not totally depleted. If im tired, i do 2-3 light negatives, and if im fresh i do maybe 2 presses and 2-3 weighted negatives. If i go beyond this amount, i know i will decrease during the week, but if kept within limits, i usually get stronger.

As said, with straps that put a lot of pressure on the joins, from all the levers, and especially the 1 arm work, i do only 3-4 days a week. There i am especially careful of avoiding even technical failure, as it can be extremely dangerous. On top of all this i try to keep up with my breaking, do dance classes in school, as well as acrobatics and some conditioning, so there is an extreme amount of things to do, but it is all working out nicely as long as i listen to my body.

[Razz]

Handbalancer that was some good insight. I'm having a hard time leaving my ego at the door when it comes to training hard. I'm getting better at not killing myself every workout though.

EDIT: and Alex that reminded me that I need to change between frequency and intensity, thanks.