Be Cautious Taking Advice from Coaches of Elite Athletes

What works for Olympic gold medalists probably won't work for you if you weigh 400 pounds and your primary exercise activity is opening bags of potato chips. There is some evidence that working out every day won't hurt if you are out of shape, but if you can't drag yourself to the gym six times a week, three times is still better than none.

What is some advice that applies to beginners as well as elite athletes?

The harder you work out, the less often you need to work out.

If you do a lot of repetitions of a muscle building exercise, you need to work out fewer times per week. If you do just a few repetitions of a muscle building exercise, you need to work out more times per week.

Let's say you lift the heaviest weight you can, but just once. It might be alright to do this every day, as long as you are not damaging ligaments, tendons, or bones. But if you lift the heaviest weight you can 10 times, or 20 times, or 30 times, you should weight several days or even a week before lifting it again.

It's OK to vary your workout routine.

Let's suppose you workout on a machine and you decide to do 90 repetitions a week. You could do 30 repetitions of the exercise every other day, three days per week, or you could do 60 repetitions in one session and 30 repetitions a few days later, or all 90 repetitions in a single session.

The more often you work out, the more important it is to vary your routine.

If you want to work out every day, or every other day, use a heavier weight some days and a lighter weight other days. This gives your muscles the stimulation they need to continue to grow, but helps you improve your balance and coordination.

If you follow a low-carbohydrate diet, you should not work out every day.

Muscles are not made just of protein. The protein you eat is of primary importance to building the fibers that give the muscle its strength. The bulk of the muscle, what "pumps it up," is actually carbohydrate. More specifically, muscle mass is made with glycogen, which is a chemical combination of glucose and water that the muscle can use for energy when it is using energy faster than the bloodstream can deliver glucose. The combination of water with glucose to make the more stable molecule glycogen is what gives muscles their contour. If you work out so much that your muscles deplete their glycogen supply, they will actually shrink until they have a chance to replenish carbohydrate. If you become dehydrated, your muscles won't be able to "pump up" with glycogen.

Smaller muscles can be worked out more often.

If you are focusing on a smaller muscle group, such as your biceps or triceps, you don't need to as much recovery time between workouts because smaller muscles don't require as much glucose, to make glycogen, and protein, to build new, stronger muscle fibers.

See Also: Why Pro Athletes' Workouts Won't Work Out For You

Once you have reached your strength goals, cut back on the frequency of your exercise sessions.

Lifting weights twice a week is enough for nearly anyone to maintain muscle mass and strength. Missing workouts for more than two weeks is usually enough to guarantee some loss of muscle strength.