Can You Do a Full-Body Workout Two Days in a Row?

Its time to bust a gym myth.

There is, it turns out, no such law of nature.

you might train whatever you want, whenever you want.

Exercise breaks down muscle tissue and recovery time repairs it, so you should probably alternate the two.

Either you would fail to build muscle, or perhaps you would get injured, or maybe both.

The fact that I was sometimes sore the day after a workout would seem to corroborate the idea.

Its best to skip if youre still sore, right?

(Its not.)

I couldnt do it on Tuesday, because then Id be working out TuesdayandWednesday!

Which would ruin everything.

But I should have seen through it.

After all, we use our muscles every day just for activities of daily life.

You dont lie in bed on Tuesday just because you went for a walk on Monday.

And even when you think about heavier work, what about people whose jobs involve manual labor?

Of course not, and that should tell us something.

Meanwhile, the process of muscle breakdown and repair doesnt happen on a 24-hour clock.

What actually happens if you train the same muscle two days in a row?

You get two days of training in.

You lift what you’re free to, and you still get stronger.

And it makes sense to space those days out as much as your schedule allows.

Or perhaps you prefer the idea of splitting up your workout by body part.

This is an idea that became populararound the time that bodybuilding and weightlifting branched into different sports.

These are all fine ways to spread out the work that you do during the week.

But you could also do full-body workouts on as many days each week as you like.

Taking a long weekend for a vacation?

Go ahead and stack your three full-body days next to each other so you might take four days off.

I cant believe I used to be afraid of this.

The main one iswhether your total workload is appropriatefor what your body is used to.

But if you do three, youll probably be fine with four.

I do deadlifts on my last heavy day of the week, either Friday or Saturday.

In other words, your body is resilient.