I train everyday.

I do. Sometime’s I’ll do two sessions a day. I don’t say this to brag. To be honest, sometime’s I do feel I spend too much time training. Time that could instead be spent working on this blog, or spent with friends and family instead. On the other hand, I practice what I preach because I have a 100% confidence in the efficacy of my methods. And don’t get me wrong, it’s not the other way around where I do this to prove a point. I train everyday because it works. Its the best thing to do for the betterment of my body and my mind.

The Concept of Training and Rest days

But what about rest days? We’re talking about a pretty well established concept in the world of fitness today. A simple google search will show you how widespread it is. And it’s not necessarily all wrong. There definitely is value in the idea of recovery. However, is being sedentary all day watching television and eating crappy food, the best way to go about a rest day?

To answer that question we need to take a closer look at the concept of training itself.

What is training?

It’s the systematic application of stimulus to the body with the goal of eliciting a sought after adaptation. When training is done right, the body is better adapted to deal with future applications of the said stimulus.

Now think about it – Does stimuli suddenly stop being applied when you exit the gym? Not at all, every living moment of life is spent under various stimuli. From that perspective, you’re always training, right?

Well, not exactly.

What’s missing is the end goal. The stimuli that we are exposed to daily are well tolerated because we have adapted to them. You’re daily commute to work, climbing the stairs to your apartment or even just sitting down on your office chair, our bodies adapt to the life we are living – in a positive or a negative way.

And there in lies the problem.

The risk of taking Rest days

Over hundreds of thousands of years, our bodies have adapted to move. Running, climbing, carrying, squatting, – these are natural movements that the human race has practiced for eons. It’s only been the last hundred years or so where sitting on a chair for 8 hours or more a day has become the standard for most of us.

I visited my physiotherapist recently because my neck had been bothering me. I’d been wrestling, doing jiu jitsu, practising handstands and headstands and I was sure one of those things had messed me up. However, it turned out that my posture was the real culprit. Working on the desktop for 8 hours a day and having tight pecs had pulled my shoulders out of alignment and tightened my trapeziums and neck muscles.

Now, its true that working on a desktop for 8 hours a day doesn’t have much to do with taking a rest day or two a week.

Yet, it should get you wondering whether more inactivity is really what your body needs when it comes to recovery.

Is going to the gym everyday the answer?

The answer is that it depends on your training. The culture of exercise today is all about quick fix WODs.

You want to burn fat? theres a WOD for that.

How about a bigger chest? theres a WOD for that too.

Abs? Pfft, got a WOD for that right here!

Unfortunately, doing random WODs day in and day out without the context of proper programming is not training. There is no specific aim to improve an attribute or method followed to reach it.

Doing WODs or other boot camp style drills everyday might feel rewarding. You certainly feel like you’ve accomplished a lot when you finish one. And there is certainly something to be said about the cultivation of mental fortitude that is required to pump out the workouts within prescribed limits. It’s a good feeling. Is it the best way to achieve results? Is it the best thing to do for performance or aesthetics?

If this is what you’re doing, then yes you’re going to need a sedentary rest day or two. You’ve beaten up your body to the point where you have no choice.

On the other hand, if you’re training ie. following a program with a specific goal to achieve (Click here to learn how to make your own custom Beginners Calisthenics program), then some sort of training stimuli everyday can absolutely be beneficial for you.

Benefits of training everyday.

Training everyday helps you simultaneously develop different attributes

A properly constructed training program takes into account the various goals of an athlete. Through well planned programming, multiple attributes can be worked on simultaneously. Sometimes working in this way provides mutual benefit for both attributes.

For example:- Working maximum strength side by side with mobility. Strength and mobility can be worked on during the same sessions or during alternating sessions.

Training everyday increases frequency

Increased frequency of your targeted movements (ie. practice), is going to strengthen your neuromuscular connection to make the movement more efficient. The more often you train (with proper recovery), the faster you’ll progress, especially at the beginner level.

Great for Skill training

Skill training benefits greatly from frequent training sessions. Also since skill training is never done till the point of fatigue, its possible to train skills with high frequency.

Training enhances and aids recovery

Low intensity training is more beneficial for your recovery that total absence of any training stimuli. Deloads are one common application of this strategy used in bodybuilding and weightlifting. A deload happens usually after a period of systematic overload where the overall resistance and volume used for the exercises are reduced. This gives the body time to regenerate fully. This method  can similarly be used in Calisthenics.

Similarly, low intensity aerobic training (with a constant Heart rate of 120 – 150 beats per minute) has also been shown to have non inflammatory effects than can help battle the inflammation caused by high intensity training methods.

The Cons of training everyday

Over training

The WOD mindset that every time you enter the gym, you need to destroy yourself is hard to let go off. If you train with high intensity every time, you’re body is quickly going to become overwhelmed. Without using proper recovery methods, it won’t be able to keep up. The standard symptoms of overtraining like stagnation, plateauing, weakening and injury will follow.

Training antagonistic attributes could be detrimental to you

if you do decide to work on different attributes simultaneously, take some time to learn what attributes go well together. Training attributes that promote opposing adaptations together will mean little improvement in either attribute.

As an example, do not train maximum strength with endurance in the same cycle. That is not to say that someone cant be strong and have high endurance too. Its just that both these attributes don’t play well together and your better off concentrating on one of them at a time.

A set of attributes that go very well together is Maximum strength, skill training and mobility training.

Learn how to Walk the tightrope between Over-training and Under-training

Keeping heavy training sessions to optimum levels is really the key to understanding the boundary between under-training and over-training. What the optimum number of heavy training sessions is for you will be subjective. For most people, it will be about 2 – 3 sessions a week.

This leaves room for 3 – 4 sessions a week for accessory work or recovery work that directly or indirectly benefits your main training. These sessions could also be spent learning a skill.

The main take away that I want for you from this article is to rethink what training means to you. 

Training isn’t just resistance training at the gym, it’s:

Stretching

going out for a light jog or walk

playing catch

dance

martial arts

yoga

Its moving your body.

Make moving your body an everyday part of your life, but not with the intention of taking yourself to your physical limits every time.