Is it okay to do strength training every day?

There is really no one-size-fits-all standard answer to this matter. Whether you can practice it or not, it all depends on how you arrange your training content, your own recovery conditions, and your training goals.

The first piece of fitness advice that many newbies hear is that "muscles grow during rest." There is nothing wrong with this. Two years ago, I took care of a young man who had just graduated. He was in a hurry to develop chest muscles that were visible in clothes for two months. He bench-pressed for an hour every day for five consecutive days. On the third day, he started to be unable to push the weight and had to grit his teeth to carry it. In the end, his chest muscles were strained and it hurt even to put on a pullover. It took him almost a month to recover. You have to work hard to build the same part. Even if it is an iron bump, you have to remove layers of skin, let alone the flesh and blood muscles. After training the large muscle groups, you must give at least 48 hours of rest time to wait for the muscle fibers to repair, and the small muscle groups must also be allowed 24 hours to slow down. Continuously attacking the same part is not called hard work, it is called self-mutilation.

Then why do some people go to the gym every day and nothing happens, but their condition gets better and better? Last week I met an older brother in the gym who has been practicing for almost ten years. He has one day off on Sundays and is on time every day. The total weight of the three major events is almost 600 pounds. His condition is better than that of many young guys in their early twenties. When I asked about it, I found out that they trained strictly according to the division: chest on Monday, back on Tuesday, legs on Wednesday, shoulders on Thursday, arms on Friday, core plus light aerobics on Saturday. Each muscle group can be rested for five or six days after training. In addition, the diet is accurate, and the weight is 1.8 per kilogram. I eat grams of protein and sleep for eight and a half hours every day without fail. After training, I have a full set of foam rolling, fascia shooting and 10 minutes of stretching. My body recovers faster than it is consumed by training, and there is no problem of overtraining at all. There are also those who practice street fitness and light-weight CrossFit. Many of them practice every day, but they practice different movement patterns every time. They rarely stimulate the same part repeatedly, and the intensity is controlled to a level that is a little sore after the exercise but does not affect normal activities the next day, so there will naturally be no problems.

In fact, for us ordinary office workers, there is really no need to insist on the question "should I practice every day?" If you can only spare thirty or forty minutes every day, and don't want to make a too complicated differentiation plan, you can practice different small parts every day. You can practice your arms today and your core tomorrow. You don't have to pursue training to exhaustion every time. Just relax your muscles and bones after sitting for a day, which is better than slumping on the sofa and scrolling through your mobile phone. If you want to hit the weight every time you train and train to the point of being hearty, then training three or four times a week is enough. Cramming in training days will keep your cortisol high, and you will lose muscle if you don't sleep well, which is not worth the gain. To put it bluntly, this matter is similar to raising succulents. If you water them every day, they will easily cause root rot. If you think of watering them once, they will be watered thoroughly, but they will grow shiny and plump. If you are just getting started and still don't know your physical condition or the standard of movements, then you should start by practicing three times a week. Don't just follow the trend and go to the gym every day. There is a high probability that your efforts will be in vain and you will easily get injured.