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I've been training three days per week for about two months now and feel that I want to increase the amount of training I do. From mon - wed - fri, to mon-tue-thu-fri. Currently I have a two day training routine with 8 exercises each. Mainly kettlebells, but a few machine exercises aswell.

What do I need to think about?

For example, I'm concerned about overtraining muscles.

Training the same musclesgroups two days in a row, is that bad?

If I still have soreness in the muscles from training the day before, is there a danger in training again?

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  • You seem to have spent some thoughts on this, but why do you want to train more days and what are your goals?
    – Baarn
    Apr 7, 2013 at 11:18
  • Goals are to lose weight and get stronger. Training more would help with that faster.
    – Fredrik
    Apr 7, 2013 at 11:47
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    @Fredrik Training more days would not necessary resulting in losing weight or getting stronger. Would you mind share with us a little bit more about your typical diet, the intensity of your workout, the types of exercises you are doing, and of course the volume of your workouts (reps and sets, etc.)? I think we can help you even more with additional details from you. Thanks for a great question!
    – QikMood
    Apr 7, 2013 at 15:59
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    From what you've said about your routine you might have better results changing what you're doing rather than just training more often. Could you elaborate on what kind of exercises you are doing? Also, when you say "lose weight" do you actually mean "burn fat"? If you're looking to increase your strength then there's probably going to be some associated gains in muscle mass, and therefore increased weight, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Apr 8, 2013 at 12:49
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    Like @Trungmanator said, it is very difficult to answer this question as is. For instance you said you are concerned with overtraining muscles. Without knowing what your workout routine is, we cannot gauge whether or not that will be an issue.
    – Moses
    Apr 11, 2013 at 0:20

2 Answers 2

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In general, you should refrain from training the same muscle groups on consecutive days. For example, you can split it up based on push vs. pull muscles (Push: chest, shoulders, tris, Pull: back, bis), upper vs middle vs lower body, and so on. Allow your muscles to have the proper recovery time to prevent overtraining.

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Going from 3 day/week to 4 day/week typically mean you'll lose a day of rest in between the training days. So you'll need to plan your exercises a bit more. I google a bit and found this plan to start from. It has set up different musclegroups on different days, so that you should have time to rest before exercising the muscles again, even if you are training two days in a row.

I found that I wanted to add some more kettlebell exercises, since I found those to be fun and raise the cardio quite alot. Those tend to work alot of muscles at the same time, so I put them in on tuesdays and fridays, i.e before resting days. If you are like me, and you are, you typically have a set amount of time for you workout so I found that six exercises was optimal with four sets each.

So what I ended up with was the training schedule below. The musclesgroups are separated enough to not give me issues.

Monday

  • Shoulders, Alternating Kettlebell Press
  • Shoulders, Dumbbell Lateral Raise
  • Shoulders, Dumbbell Shoulder Shrug
  • Triceps, Barbell Lying Triceps Extension
  • Shoulders, Barbell Up Right Row
  • Triceps, Cable Triceps Pushdown

Tuesday

  • Upper Legs/back, Kettlebell two hand swing
  • Shoulders, One Arm Kettlebell Snatch
  • Back, Barbell Deadlift
  • Back, One Arm Dumbbell Row
  • Abs, Ab Crunch Machine
  • Forearms, Kettlebell, bottoms up

Thursday

  • Chest, Dumbbell Incline Bench Press
  • Chest, Dumbbell Incline Fly
  • Chest, Bench Press Machine
  • Biceps, Dumbbell Incline Hammer Curls
  • Biceps, Barbell Curl
  • Biceps, Bicep Curl Machine

Friday

  • Shoulders, One Arm Kettlebell Snatch
  • Upper Legs, Front Squats With Two Kettlebells
  • Upper Legs, Leg Press Machine
  • Upper Legs, Leg Extensions
  • Lower Legs, Calf Press on Leg Press Machine
  • Lower Legs, Seated Calf Raise

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