RECOVERY METHODS FOR TRAINING 5 DAYS A WEEK
The concept of recovery is simple and straightforward, but for a lot of people, it’s hard to follow through.
The three pillars of recovery are nutrition, hydrations, and sleep.
Remember, muscle growth occurs outside of the gym!
1. NUTRITION:
If you want to build muscle, you need an ample amount of protein and high quality carbs. You should be eating around .75 gram of protein for every lb of bodyweight. So, if you weight 180lbs, you need at least 135g of protein each day (yes, even on days you are not working out). Carbs should be around 2-3.5 grams per lb of bodyweight. Avoid cards before bed and always consume carbs after your workout.
If you are looking to lose weight while keeping on muscle, then you should up the protein and lower the carbs. For a fat loss diet, your protein needs to be at around 1 gram per lb of bodyweight. Your carbs should be cut in half, only consuming them in the mornings, a little an hour or so before your workout, and just after a workout.
2. HYDRATION:
Water is essential for building muscle. It helps energize your muscles and keeps them performing at the highest level. It also helps you keep off fat.
You should be drinking about half your bodyweight in ounces of water. So, if you weight 200lbs, you need 100 ounces of water per day (or 3 liters).
3. SLEEP:
Make sure you are getting 8+ hours a night. If you are training hard, you body needs more sleep than those who are not. If not, your immune system will suffer, as will your workouts.
When we say 8+ hours of sleep, we mean good sleep. If you are constantly waking up in the night, you are affecting your deep sleep, which is the sleep that aids in recovery and boosts the good hormones. So, if you have any issues with your sleep, work on fixing them. Good quality sleep is vital.
WHAT SUPPLEMENTS SHOULD YOU TAKE?
There are many supplements out there, but there are really only a few supplements that you need to consider for your 5 day gym workout routine:
1. Protein Powder: Protein powder is nothing but real protein that has been processed into a powder. You will need to consume more protein than people who don’t train so protein powder is a very efficient and economical way to consume the protein you need to recovery. The best time to use protein powder is post-workout but can also be used for a healthy snack. Note: Don’t let all of your protein come from protein powder, it’s to help supplement your daily protein intake, not make up all of it.
2. Creatine: Is one of the most researched supplement there is. Studies show that it is one of few supplements that actually supports sports performance. It can help you improve strength, intra-workout recovery, and lean muscle mass.
3. Caffeine: Caffeine is similar to creatine in that it has an overwhelming amount of studies to support its use. This is why it is usually the primary ingredient in many pre-workouts, as it gives you increased energy and can help you train hard throughout a session. So, if you need a boost before your workout, caffeine in the form of coffee or energy drinks will surely help.
FAQS ABOUT 5 DAY WORKOUT PLANS:
1. IS WORKING OUT 5 DAYS A WEEK TOO MUCH?
Working out 5 days a week is perfectly fine as long as you are not training each muscle group every day or too close together. If you want to train 5 days a week, then you should follow one of the 5 day workout split options because they are structured in a way that allows you to workout at this weekly frequency without burning out or overtraining. A systematic approach is important to ensure good recovery. By separating your body parts into different days, you can train more frequently.
Most people do perfectly fine with a 5 day workout because the workouts are so focused on one area of your body and there’s plenty of recovery, so it is hard to overtrain.
WORD OF CAUTION FOR BEGINNERS:
If you are a beginner, 5 days a week may be unnecessary. Your body as a whole may need more time to recover. It’s not even about your muscles, because you are training specific muscle groups each day with a split. It’s about your nervous system. As a complete beginner, a workout with 16-20+ sets per muscle group can be too taxing, especially if you still haven’t dialed in on good nutritional practices or aren’t getting enough sleep. This could be a recipe for failure or some serious DOMS. So, we recommend most beginners to go for a 3 day split or 4 day split that trains 2-3 different muscle groups per workout with 6-10 sets each muscle group. As you become more experienced and in better shape, you can gradually increase your training volume and eventually do a 5 day split.
If you decide to go for a 5 day split and you are feeling fatigued after a couple weeks, place a rest day in-between every 2 workout sessions. It’s fine if you complete your split routine in 8 or 9 days rather than 7. Recovery is vital.
2. IS 5 DAYS A WEEK ENOUGH TO BUILD MUSCLE?
Working out 5 days a week is more than enough to build muscle. You can spread out the volume of your training throughout the week, which a lot of people find easier to manage than 3-4 days of high volume training.
If you are a beginner, you will build muscle with just 3 days a week, at low volume per workout. It’s the newbie gain phenomenon – people new to training will see gains quickly and easily, usually in their first three months, then things start to slow down as you reach an intermediate level. By 6 months in, you will need to start ramping things up.
3. HOW LONG SHOULD I FOLLOW A 5 DAY SPLIT TO SEE RESULTS?
Follow the training plan for at least 8 weeks and at most 12 weeks. If you are a beginner, you should start seeing physical results around 4 weeks in. If you an experienced lifter, you will see some good results by the time the training cycle is over (especially if you do some before and after pics). What you will noticeably see throughout the training cycle are improvements in your strength and overall fitness. Also, if you eat right, you should be able to build muscle while keeping lean.
4. HOW LONG SHOULD MY WORKOUTS LAST IN A 5 DAY SPLIT WORKOUT?
We can’t give you an exact length of time for each workout for a 5 day split as it depends on your training goals, your schedule, the muscle groups you are targeting, and your fitness level. However, generally speaking, your workouts should last no longer than 60 minutes (including warm up but excluding cardio). The average time for workout sessions for a 5 day split is usually around 45-60 minutes. Remember, you are training 5 days a week, so the volume is spread out more over the week, which means you can do slightly less total volume each workout than you would with a 3 or 4 day split.
Now, to give you some ideas why your workout may be longer or shorter:
Let’s say your training goal is strength, then you would be doing heavy sets of approx. 5 reps. In this case, you’d need at least 2 minutes of rest between each set, so your workout may last longer.
On the flip side, maybe you are doing a standard split for muscle hypertrophy, using just 30-60 seconds rest sets and aiming to do a total of 20 sets per workout. This workout shouldn’t take you any longer than 45 minutes – 30 seconds working time + 45 seconds rest = 75 seconds per set x 20 sets = 1,500 seconds, which is 25 minutes, but it would be very hard to maintain 45 seconds every set especially with setting up for new exercises. So, it would really be like 40 minutes or so. This is the perfect workout time for metabolic training, which focuses on burning a lot of calories while building muscle.
Another example of why workout times will vary is your schedule. If you only have 30 minutes, then you can make that work! It’s as simple as that. Anyway, 30 minutes 5 times a week is perfectly adequate.
As for fitness level, obviously the more experienced you are and the better shape you are in, the more your muscles can handle. So, it may take a beginner just 10 sets to reach fatigue for a specific muscle group, whereas an advanced lifter takes 20 sets, which is why beginners usually do better with splits that train 2 muscle groups per workout.
So, as you can see, it all depends. But the general rule of thumb is 45-60 minutes for a 5 day split. Just make those minutes count by not lollygagging around – a 30 minute workout that’s intense is far better than a half-ass workout that takes 90 minutes. Plus cortisol (the fat producing hormone) starts to increase after 60 minutes or so, especially for people over 40, which is obviously something you want to avoid.
5. WHEN SHOULD I DO CARDIO WITH A 5 DAY WORKOUT SPLIT?
If you want to lose fat or simply keep lean, cardio is a must. Calories burned when weightlifting, especially with a bodybuilding or powerlifting split, simply can’t compare to traditional cardio. So, if cardio is important to you, we recommend that you do 20-40 minutes of cardio 3-4 days a week, although even 2 days is ok.
You can do cardio after your workout, on your rest days, or in the morning or evening separated from your weightlifting sessions. If it was up to us, we’d say do cardio in the morning and weightlifting in the evening. Your muscles are strongest in the evening because your body is warmer. For most people, they will get the best strength workouts in later on in the day.
