Athletes often overlook the importance of recovery time, especially when training for a sport or activity. While training hard and pushing yourself to the limit is important, it's also imperative that you allow your body adequate time to recover from any physical stress you put on it. A proper training split will help ensure you give yourself enough rest time between workouts to continue improving while avoiding injury or fatigue.
What is a training split?
A training split is a way to organize your workouts to achieve the best results. It's not just for weightlifting or running but any training where you must focus on different muscle groups at other times.
You'll probably hear people talk about using "upper-lower" splits, meaning they're focusing on one part of their body in one workout and another in another. For example:
- Monday: Chest, triceps, abs (upper body)
- Tuesday: Back and biceps (lower body)
Your recovery time is just as important as your workout.
Your recovery time is just as important as your workout. It's often forgotten and neglected by many athletes who don't give their bodies enough time to recover from exercise.
Your body needs time to repair and recover after an intense training session so that you can build muscle, increase strength and improve endurance--all of which are essential for an overall healthy lifestyle.
If you need to take adequate rest days between strength training sessions or cardio workouts (or both), you will likely hinder the progress of your fitness goals rather than help them along by overtraining yourself.
You need to give your body time to heal before you attempt another challenging workout.
It's important to give your body time to recover and repair muscle damage, or else you won't be able to gain the benefits of your workout. If you don't give yourself enough recovery time between workouts, it could lead to overtraining syndrome (OTS). OTS is when your body becomes exhausted from excessive exercise and cannot recover properly due to a lack of rest.
The best way to avoid this is by following a proper training split that allows for adequate rest between workouts so that all aspects of physical fitness can improve optimally without compromising one another too much.
If you don't rest, you won't reap the benefits of your hard work!
Resting is essential to your health and fitness. It's not just about sitting on the couch and watching TV, though that can be relaxing in its own right! Resting allows your body to recover from injuries, improves circulation, and increases energy levels. If you don't rest, you won't reap the benefits of your hard work!
If you're not sure how much time should be spent resting between workouts or what kinds of activities are appropriate for rest periods, here are some general guidelines:
The Benefits of Proper Training Split and Recovery Time
There are many benefits to training splits. For example, they help you stay motivated and achieve your fitness goals. They also allow for proper recovery from injuries to get the most out of each workout.
How to organize your training splits.
There are many ways to organize your training splits. Here are some examples:
- A two-day split, where you do two workouts per week. For example, Monday and Thursday are chest/shoulders/triceps days, while Tuesday and Friday are legs/back days.
- A four-day split, where you do one workout per day of the week (usually Monday through Friday). This can be done with two back-to-back days or three separate workouts throughout the week.
- An upper/lower body split; is when you train one of your main muscle groups (upper body) during one session and another main muscle group (lower body) during another session within a week. For example, Monday - Chest & Triceps Tuesday - Back & Biceps Wednesday - Shoulders Thursday - Legs
Takeaways
- Please don't overdo it. The goal of exercise is to be healthy, not exhausted. If your workouts leave you feeling drained and sore, they're too intense for your current fitness level.
- Remember to rest. Make sure you're getting enough sleep and taking time off from exercise when needed so that you can recover properly before exercising again--and make sure not just physical recovery but mental recovery as well! It's important not to let the stresses of life prevent us from enjoying our favorite pastimes (such as going for a run), but sometimes we need breaks from our usual routine so that we don't burn out completely before reaching our goals or even worse, get injured because we pushed ourselves too hard without allowing time for proper healing in between workouts/training sessions.
Conclusion
Now that you know the benefits of proper training split and recovery time, we hope you'll take our advice to heart. It's not easy to stick to a training schedule when life gets in the way, but it can be worth it! If you want to get better results from your workouts and see faster results from your efforts, then make sure that you plan out your next few weeks carefully so that each day has its purposeful activity.
