Your success and making your body as good as possible, so that it better serves your needs is within your reach. It is yours to attain, providing you follow the means to success and the selection of exercises as follows.
LAYOFFS.
A person who endeavors to build their body to a stage that they are genetically able to do so, must understand how muscles are developed, if he or she wants to continue without a week’s rest. One needs layoffs in training on a regular basis, if these layoffs are not planned and instigated, injuries may occur, and mental staleness will set in. When mental staleness or injuries sets in, a person tends to give up and become a lazy person so to speak and all training is forsaken. Your muscle fibers and mind need a chance to recuperate and rest, which will enable the muscle fibers to break down and rebuild with adequate stimulation, nutrition, and rest.
Some weight training enthusiasts are willing to follow advice from so called experts whether in the gym or online, if you are making gains on full body movements twice a week, you can get twice as many gains on four times a week. This sort of approach and madness leads to staleness and overtraining downright lunacy. Instead of sticking to twice a week and resting a week or two every 8 to 10 weeks, the trainee is encouraged to ingest anabolic steroids or other chemicals to aid recovery so that they can train more often. If you have been reading my articles so far on weight training success and you want to build strength and a fine physique you will need to take regular layoffs.
As funny or unorthodox as it may seem, the days you rest before you train again are a form of a short lay off. If you were to train hard, attempting to increase the weight used very slightly or the reps on a full body workout of the legs, back, chest, shoulders, and arms, you breakdown the muscle fibers of the muscles being trained. Therefore you need three to four days rest of no weight training before you do it again. This breakdown of muscles fibers is needed to make your training effective and productive.
Gains in size and strength will occur only if the muscle fibers are overloaded in correct form and focus broken down and repaired to get larger with adequate rest and recuperation between workouts. The fibers are given sufficient time to rebuild. Just recently I trained a young person in full body workouts once every 4 days. His second workout was not as productive as his first, he used the same weight but his reps in good form were down, and he looked tired. I asked what he did for his rest days, and he said he worked his back and shoulders on one of his rest days. This splitting the body parts and training them when he should have been resting resulted in overtraining and lack of recovery to train hard again. His muscle fibers had not had time to breathe and rest.
MY EXPERIENCE, BOB TO THE RESCUE.
Scheduling layoffs is different for everyone, depending upon your circumstances of life. There are many factors which can contribute to when you are due to have a rest from your training, one cannot keep gaining indefinitely, it is not possible. I speak of my own experience last September I moved to a seaside town 400 kilometers from my home of Broken Hill. From October 2023 until January 2024 I was extremely busy manually building new fences and, lifting carrying and pushing in my yard. Renovating it so to speak. I was getting tired and worn out, I continued to weight train once every fourth day, and do cardio to a lesser degree. Coach Bob Whelan could tell I was wearing down and suggested I take two weeks rest from all activity, therefore weight training and cardio. I said to Bob maybe one week Bob, Bob said raising his voice two weeks David, you need it. It is great to have a coach and friend such as Bob Whelan who can observe and offer suggestions to help.
As Bob suggested I took two weeks off and took my Fox terrier dog Tan for a walk every day for 30 minutes. Layoffs soften your body as Peary Rader once wrote and told me, Peary said “your body needs it David, time to rest and recover. Well the results are amazing; I have gained 3 pounds in bodyweight and am stronger in all lifts after six weeks since my layoff.
We can do one of two things:
1. Continue to push and to workout, and thus go stale and stay stale, until you lay off training out of necessity or
2. Layoff and thus recuperate adequately, so that when you commence training it becomes an upward climb. I have found the period between start and peak or layoff time is about 8 weeks. It is rarely less than six weeks, and I know of no person in the weight training game who can train for more than 12 weeks before a rest is designated. So the range is six to twelve weeks. You will know by experience, and after some alert observations by yourself when it is time to take a break.
Train hard and consistently right up to the point just prior to hitting those pre staleness workouts. You need never, never again, ever go stale.
After a designated lay off you will experience the rewards I have achieved.
During the layoff one should exercise, do not do exercise which breaks down the muscle fibers. I would suggest doing exercise such as swimming, walking, hiking, bike riding, Layoffs are also a suitable time to read and learn of ways to improve, mentally, physically, and spiritually. There is one point I wish to raise is if you are a younger person and wish to gain size and strength or an underweight person, I suggest no exercise on rest days or during a layoff, just rest, sleep and eat naturally of course. Only weight training needs to be done.
During a layoff do not eat ponderously, control your intake of starches and fats, these can cause you to gain excess flab. Live on lean meats, fish, lots of fresh raw vegetables, fruits, and poultry dishes. Control your diet, exercise gently and enjoy yourself.
