Lifting heavy everyday vs every 2-3 days

[Arkitech]

It's pretty much accepted that the best way to build muscle is to follow a schedule of lifting by concentrating on a body part every 2-3 days. From what I've read this allows the muscle enough time to repair itself, I'm leaving out a few details but I think that's the major point. However I was thinking that if a person wanted to lose weight quickly then perhaps lifting heavy everyday or at least 4-5 times a week would be a good solution. My logic behind this is observing people who have physically demanding jobs that require lifting or moving heavy items on a daily basis. Also it appears that some prisoners do a significant amount of resistance training on a daily basis as well with interesting results. Has anyone here attempted to a lifting schedule that targets most of the same muscles on a daily or nearly daily basis? How did it work out for you?

I'm going to give this a try, I'll give an update on my progress.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Plenty of people do this by splitting their workouts up into body groups - biceps, back, triceps, chest, legs, abs, etc. They usually tag two together each day and lift 4-5 days a week. This is usually best for some sort of bodybuilding routine. However, if you think doing the same or similar lifts back to back during these days is going to help you lose weight more quickly, you risk a very high chance of injury. Rest is just as important as the actual lifting. You could lift 3 times a week and do light cardio on the days in between if you really wanted to be doing something every day.

 

[presidentender]

I used to lift 6 days a week, on a 3 day split. That was somewhat successful, but you have to make sure you aren't training the same on consecutive days, and to eat enough to make it worthwhile. If you're looking to lose weight, just burn more calories and take fewer in; however you accomplish that, it will give you the same results. In any case, your diet will be more important than your exercise.

 

[TallBill]

I lifted 5-6 days a week for quite a while by rotating bodyparts like SC said. I lift heavier now so I'm not sure that I could even do it. Now I lift 3-4 times a week.

 

[brikis98]

First of all, weight lifting more often is not going to have much of an impact on weight loss. It's not an efficient way to burn calories and you're better off using standard "cardio" (running, biking, etc) if you're trying to achieve a caloric deficit. The primary use of weight lifting while cutting is to help maintain LBM, which is also extremely important, but it's usually enough to just lift heavy ~3 times per week to achieve this.

Second, I would not recommend lifting heavy with the same muscle groups every single day. If you do a 4 or 5 day split routine that works different muscles every day, you'll be fine, but if you work out your entire body every single day, you're likely to fail. Your muscles need time to rest, but just as importantly, so does your CNS. If you do more weight/volume/intensity than your CNS can recover from, not only will your results slow, but you may experience other symptoms of overtraining as well. This may be especially problematic while on a caloric deficit.

Third, if you insist on doing something daily, you could take SC's advice and lift heavy 3 times a week and do cardio on the other days, or you could look into crossfit. It's the workout routine of many military, police, firefighters, mixed martial artists, etc and is designed to develop general physical preparedness (ie, overall fitness). Rather than improving just strength or just endurance, Crossfit is designed to improve "each of 10 fitness domains: cardiovascular/respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, agility, balance, coordination, and accuracy." It does involve weight lifting, but also gymnastics, running, plyometrics, climbing and a whole lot more. The prescribed CF schedule is 3 on, 1 off, so you'd be working out 5-6 days per week. A few of these days would involve heavy lifting while the rest would be various metcon (metabolic conditioning) workouts that usually use much lighter weights or bodyweight.

Finally, no matter what routine you pick, if it involves an increase in intensity/volume, work your way up to it gradually. Don't go from exercising 2-3 days per week to 6 days per week in one jump, or you body will not have enough time to adapt. This especially applies to CF where, even though the weights used are often light, the level of intensity tends to be incomparably higher than any other routine you've likely done. Scale the workouts, start with 1 on, 1 off and work your way up slowly from there.

 

[KoolDrew]

Losing weight requires being in a calorie deficit. Being in a calorie deficit means recovery will suffer. As such, doing MORE lifting while LOWERING calories is completely ass backwards. As brikis98 mentioned, the point of lifting on a diet is more to maintain LBM than anything else and the fact is it doesn't take much in terms of frequency or volume to maintain muscle mass. The important thing is that intensity doesn't decrease (weight on the bar). I've done heavy full body workouts 2x a week on a cut before with great success.

 

[Arkitech]

I expected the answers that were given, I realize that talking about daily lifting and working the same body parts would'nt get much positive feedback. However I'm basing my opinions on observing people who do physically challenging manual labor day in and day out. For example I know of a woman who's an electrician by trade, she's about 5'2 and could'nt weigh more than 105-110. However due to her carrying around 25-40 pounds of tools and electrical equipment around everyday she has an amazingly toned and muscular physique (she does no other form of physical exercise or activity). I know of other people in similar trades (bricklayers, masons, laborers, etc..) who all lug around heavy weight all week long and in most cases they are very muscular and fit looking people.

So I guess my perspective is that the body learns to adapt to the load that is given. Bodybuilders train for size and other visually impressive factors, so naturally they will follow a path that's best suited for that goal. However for people who want to gain strength and lose weight then perhaps daily lifting offers solutions that goes against the current trend in resistance training. In response to the posters who made comments about weight lifting not being a good choice for cardio training, I had in mind lifting in a circuit fashion. For example after coming off of a set of squats immediately move over to curls, from curls jump into a set of shoulder presses, etc.. The continued exertion with minimal rest time increases the heart rate to that of a person who's involved in cardio activity. So I'm thinking that daily lifting done in the right manner with the right set of exercises can not only build strenth but really burn off fat in a short period of time. I do agree with some other posters in that not cutting too many calories is important with this type of lifting.

 

[brikis98]

Originally posted by: Arkitech
I expected the answers that were given, I realize that talking about daily lifting and working the same body parts would'nt get much positive feedback. However I'm basing my opinions on observing people who do physically challenging manual labor day in and day out. For example I know of a woman who's an electrician by trade, she's about 5'2 and could'nt weigh more than 105-110. However due to her carrying around 25-40 pounds of tools and electrical equipment around everyday she has an amazingly toned and muscular physique (she does no other form of physical exercise or activity). I know of other people in similar trades (bricklayers, masons, laborers, etc..) who all lug around heavy weight all week long and in most cases they are very muscular and fit looking people.

There is a huge difference between carrying light to moderate weights on your body all day (which is similar to just weighing more) and "lifting heavy" every single day. Lifting heavy implies working with weights that are 80%+ of your 1RM on the exercise. The fact that your electrician friend is able to carry that kind of weight around for extended periods of time means, by definition, that the weight is nowhere near her 1RM.

Originally posted by: Arkitech
So I guess my perspective is that the body learns to adapt to the load that is given.

If the load is not too much and the body is given enough time to adapt, yes. As I said, the loads people deal with in jobs that require physical labor are typically relatively light (compared to the person's 1RM on a similar movement) so the body can handle that just fine.

Originally posted by: Arkitech
Bodybuilders train for size and other visually impressive factors, so naturally they will follow a path that's best suited for that goal. However for people who want to gain strength and lose weight then perhaps daily lifting offers solutions that goes against the current trend in resistance training.

Most strength training routines involve heavy lifting no more than ~3 times per week. If anything, bodybuilders lift heavy more often than strength athletes.

Originally posted by: Arkitech
In response to the posters who made comments about weight lifting not being a good choice for cardio training, I had in mind lifting in a circuit fashion. For example after coming off of a set of squats immediately move over to curls, from curls jump into a set of shoulder presses, etc.. The continued exertion with minimal rest time increases the heart rate to that of a person who's involved in cardio activity. So I'm thinking that daily lifting done in the right manner with the right set of exercises can not only build strenth but really burn off fat in a short period of time. I do agree with some other posters in that not cutting too many calories is important with this type of lifting.

If you want to do circuit training, do it properly: Crossfit. As I said, the prescribed CF routine is 5-6 days per week, but most of it is not heavy lifting, but lighter weight metcon (which the body can handle in higher volume).