I want to address this question because many people make the mistake of working out too much. I blame this primarily on those muscle magazines you see with those pharmaceutically enhanced freaks on the covers. Those magazines have programs that recommend working out five to six times per week. Maybe that is fine for someone who is filled with a load of anabolic steroids but it is not for anyone who trains naturally.
The main problem with working out five to six times a week is you do not give your body enough time to recover. Specifically, you are not giving your muscles enough time to regenerate and grow. You workout because you want to increase muscle mass and gain strength. If you are short changing your muscles on recovery time then they will not grow to their full potential.
It is vital to understand that your muscles do not grow when you exercise them in the gym. Your muscles grow when you are away from the gym and resting. I´m not going to get into the whole story about muscle physiology but it is important to know a little about muscle fibers.
Muscle fibers are what increase in size when your muscles grow. Your body only has so many (they are microscopic in size) and you do not create more by working out. When you exercise with weight training you are actually tearing your muscles apart. Now do not think that these are huge tears like a rip in a piece of clothing. These are microscopic-tears that are caused when you push your muscles to lift a resistance (weight) that they are not accustomed to lifting.
After you create these microscopic-tears in your muscle fibers then you have to allow them to recover. This means they need time to rest so they can regenerate so the tears can heal. When you give the muscles enough time to recover they eventually get bigger and stronger in response to the stress you put them through in the gym. If you give them adequate rest then over time they will be able to lift more weight. If you do not give them enough of a break before taking them back to the gym then they will not be able to perform to their absolute best.
I realize my explanation of how muscle fibers adapt is very simplistic. But I wrote it this way so you could get the basics down in order to understand what you do to your muscles when you workout.
So how many times per week is it ideal for you to workout in the gym? The most times I ever recommend anyone to weight train is four times per week. If done properly this will give your body adequate time to recover, so it will be ready for the next week of workouts. Personally, I am a fan of working out three times per week. This was the schedule I followed through most of my sports career because on other days I would be training specifically for my sport.
Also, I discovered that if I tried to lift weights four times a week, on top of practices, then I became tired because I was not giving my body adequate rest. When I became tired from not giving my body proper recovery, my strength would either plateau or decrease. That is the last thing anyone wants to happen when they workout. For athletes participating in another sport three to four times a week are both adequate. Figuring out what schedule works best for you depends on your schedule and paying attention to your body. It will tell you if is recovered to workout again or not.
