Dismali

Hello,

I've been working out for about 6 months now and while I am significantly stronger than when I was not lifting at all, I feel like I haven't made any real gains in a long time. My routine consists of doing Chest/Triceps on Monday, Back/Biceps on Tuesday, Shoulders/Legs on Wednesday, then Chest/Triceps again on Thursday followed with Back/Biceps again on Friday. On the weekends I frequently run a long distance of somewhere between 20-25 miles on Saturday (I'm a yearly marathon runner). I used to run every day 5-6 miles in addition to the long run but I cutt that out on advice from my local gym "guru" who thought that it inhibited my muscle building, though following his advice hasn't helped me any and I find myself feeling really depressed and having a hard time making it in to the gym. I was thinking about switching routines to one of the examples I've seen on these forums, where it looks like you have a seperate day for back, arms, chest, delts, and legs... but I was wondering if this would work for me. Due to my schedule, I can only access the gym Monday through Friday for about 2 1/2 hours maximum. Six months ago when I was making my current routine with a trainer, he told me that after not using a muscle group for 48 hours it begins to atrophy and break down, so it was important to rotate and train your muscles every 2 days. Is this true? If so, how would the single body part workout give any benefit? Also, given the fact that I would have two rest days in a row (saturday and sunday), would my muscles start to atrophy thereby negating all of my progress from the week? Honestly, I really just don't understand lifting because I read things like "You can maintain your body with just 1 workout a week" out of Men's Health magazine, and then I sit here thinking about all the time I spend in the gym and I can't seem to get any improvement whatsoever. Let me know if I'm missing something, it would be most appreciated.

P-funk

If you have been doing that same routine for the past 6 months I think it is atime for a change. I would defenitly stop working your muscles twice a week in the fasion that you are. Also, you need to be doing legs!! Running and cardio are no excuse to neglect leg workouts.

that trainer sounds like a moron to me. It really is the other way around. I would not train a muscle group 48hrs again. I, like many here, train each muscle group once a week!!! And we see no atrophy. If anything the constant training like that trainer recommends is going to lead to the breaking down of tissue and not enough time to repair and re-grow. You need to rest to grow!!

2 1/2hrs is more than enough time to lift. You really only need to workout for about 45-60 min.

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Optimum Sports Performance

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tjwes

I totally agree .Kill that "trainer" when you see him.LOL

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