This is a commonly asked question, and I will give you my unconventional advice here. I like to compare extreme cases, as the correct answer is generally in the middle. For the best results, the more, the better. Daily training with no days off will be better for practically every goal. However, the number of hours you spend training each day will differ depending on your goals.
Speed and strength sports heavily stress the connective tissue, commonly a limiting factor for these athletes. Strength and speed generally benefit from short, intense sessions that stress the connective tissue and muscles. Research in this area is still relatively new, but tendons seem unresponsive to loading for several hours after being stimulated. The ideal training frequency for such an athlete is likely two short sessions/day, 6-12 hours apart. Strength athletes and, to a certain extent, speed athletes will perform as much relevant hypertrophy training as they can tolerate, provided it does not impact their higher-intensity strength and speed work.
Hypertrophy athletes, such as bodybuilders (if they train smart), are generally not limited by connective tissue adaptations. To maximize muscular development, they ideally train every muscle group daily. A true hypertrophy program can consist of multiple hours/days of isolation training. Each muscle doesn't need hours/day of training, but there are a lot of muscles in the body, and it takes time to train them all.
Endurance athletes also generally benefit from extremely high training volumes with multiple hours/day. In this case, the emphasis is on having an extremely high level of endurance in one or two movement types while the rest of the body is minimally developed. In terms of aerobic and cardiovascular capacity training, the more training, the better, especially for athletes who participate in extremely long endurance events. The limiting factor here is generally metabolic recovery and replenishment of glycogen stores between workouts, which is unique to endurance athletes.
Hybrid athletes will generally benefit from the most training time. This is because they have multiple qualities to train, giving them much freedom to train one thing while another recovers. So by rotating the different types of stress on the body, they can train several hours a day while avoiding overtraining any particular quality. That being said, if too many activities compete for the same recovery resources simultaneously, this can severely limit the maximum tolerable training time.
All of that being said, this is under ideal training and recovery conditions. The body performs best when we break up our training into smaller, more frequent chunks. Giant marathon workout sessions followed by two days of recovery is an archaic way to train and is among the least effective. That said, doing a small workout every few hours is inconvenient for someone who doesn't live inside a gym. Bad programming can also limit how much you can train without getting hurt or overtraining.
Factors Limiting Effective Training
So, let's look at some factors limiting how much effective training we can perform.
You are putting too much effort into your training. Yes, you heard that right. It honestly doesn't matter what kind of training we are doing (although some types are more forgiving than others), but approaching every single set like it's a competition and putting everything you have into it generally has the effect of reducing your overall training volume within the session. This training style also requires larger recovery times. Lastly, it too often combines high peak forces with high fatigue levels, drastically increasing the risk of injury. The increased injury risk also limits our potential training volume.
Not controlling tempo appropriately. This is very common. Combining heavy weights with very fast training tempos is very stressful for the connective tissue, requiring several days to recover from this type of training (often, the muscles recover before the connective tissue does). This means we must take extra time off for the connective tissue to recover before training the muscles again by heaving more weight around. Attempts to train more frequently with this approach often lead to frequent injuries, so many individuals accept that they can only strength train 2-4 days/week.
Training at low intensities but using excessive volume. This is a recovery problem. This is quite common and involves training methods needing more specificity, a common problem with hybrid programs. By utilizing properties of the force-velocity curve, we can achieve the same strength and hypertrophy training outcomes more effectively, with less injury risk and less fatigue. When we use a low-intensity approach to train for high-intensity activities, we have to use a lot more training volume, which increases fatigue. Combined with endurance training, this causes competition for recovery resources, which means we have to take more time off, or our performance will take a downturn. Strength, speed, and endurance training can be complementary IF the proper training loads and tempos are used, which is rarely the case. Remember, strength is SLOW, speed training is FAST, and endurance training needs to take a long time. We can mix some elements of these, but care needs to be taken here, and we must dissect the program on a finer level.
Not sleeping enough. Less sleep means less recovery. Many processes in the body, especially hormone and nervous system function, can only occur when we sleep. Sleep deficits significantly impair recovery, and we can't train as much. Sleep more.
Not eating enough calories. This one is simple but also a frequent mistake. We can't train as much when we're in a calorie deficit compared to maintenance calories. We can train harder when we're in a small surplus. Large surpluses often result in unwanted fat gain, which hinders our training later when we have to lose it.
Poor nutrition. This is complicated, but I'll keep it brief. Inadequate protein intake will make it hard for muscles and connective tissue to recover and grow. Inadequate carbohydrates can hinder metabolic recovery, especially for endurance athletes. Excessive sugar can lead to metabolic issues and structural defects in the connective tissue. Deficiencies in essential nutrients can impair specific recovery processes and force us to take more time off. Eat a balanced diet of lean proteins, fruits, seeds, vegetables, take a multivitamin, and don't do crazy fad diets.
I could go on, but this illustrates the point. Most of us deal with one or more of these problems frequently. Good programming combined with a lifestyle conducive to training and recovery will maximize the effective training that we can perform. A bad training program or lifestyle factors can negatively affect the training and recovery process, which means we need to take more time off to prevent injuries or overtraining.
The Bottom Line
The answer to the question "How many days can you work out?" is "it depends." The only way to know is to get your program and execute it. If you're feeling aches and pains, take a day off or do an "easy session" the next day. After several weeks, you will find the combination of training effort and frequency you can apply to that specific program, which allows performance to improve and doesn't beat you up. As you learn more about training, you can improve your training, allowing you to train more, with more intensity, and make faster progress.
That is what a good training program should do: create a safe environment for you to apply relatively high levels of effort. Want to learn more? Read my book :)
For more resources, check out Anvorum Services for online training options and avail their package to enhance your training experience.
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