Total body everyday?

[violinga1]

I haven't been diligent with my weight workouts since the new year. I've been doing lots and lots of walking and yoga, but I need to get back into weights. I did Power Hour three days ago and am still walking around with DOMS!

Anyone have a good total body rotation? Also, is it bad to do total body 5-6 days a week? I usually have the luxury of working out 90-120 minutes, so for me to do an hour of weights followed by 30-60 minutes of walking or running isn't too far off for me. Or should I space weight days out with cardio days? Oh, if I just did the work and stopped spending so much time worrying about how to work....

 

[Fitnessfreak366]

IMO total body workouts should only be done three times a week. Your body needs time to recover. You can't keep breaking it down or you will not get results. Recovery is as important as the actual workouts.

Try to space out your weight training and cardio. Something like this:

Mon: Full body
Tues: Cardio
Wed: Rest
Thurs: Full Body
Fri: Cardio
Sat: Full Body
Sun: Cardio

Keep your workouts to an hour, anymore is overkill. Less is best when trying to build muscle and tone and define your body. Also, eating/diet is 85% of the battle.

 

[kathryn]

I know it's tempting to want to do whatever you can to get back into shape as quickly as possible, but definitely don't do full-body workouts every day. (It would be doable if you used very light weights, perhaps, but that kind of defeats the purpose of weight training. There are some systems, like "freestyle" that advocate working the LOWER body most days of the week--usually 5--but that's with lighter weights, and with the express purpose of not building muscle).

I'd alternate full-body workouts and cardio, doing full-body workouts 3 times a week, never on consecutive days.

You could also do some cardio/weight workouts (also, not working the same muscle group with weights two days in a row). Which might work better for you right now, as you have been away from the weights for a while.

Another option is to do a split routine: lower body one day, upper the next. That way, you could work out with weights 4 days a week (lower on Monday and Thursday, and upper on Tuesday and Friday, for example), but still give your muscles the recovery time they need.