Rest between workouts?

[fitz1888]

I know it is best to have a rest day between working the same muscle group such as the chest or bi/triceps. However does this also apply to the abs as I always hear advice such as run every morning and do sit-ups every night.
I am only training to get into better shape and get toned, not to fight. And currently I do a abs workout on a tuesday and a thursday (and the odd saturday) but would it help if i also did a few (not a much as other days) sit-ups in between these workouts?
Thanks for any help.

[Trick]

Well not really.

I hit the bag every day, pushups, sit ups, every day. Except sunday. Using WEIGHTS you should give 24h between workouts on each muscle group. That's kinda general. If you're lifting light weights, than the resting period is a little less.

When you lift heavy you tear fibers, and you need to let them recover. Most bodyweight exercises are more about muscle fatigue than tearing. I think we can all do one push-up right? You don't tear many fibers in these things, you fatigue them. So it does not damage your body (not to say you wont get tired by saturday night) by doing pusp-ups, sutups, etc every day.

So ya, do those situps every day if you can, you'll definitly notice a difference.

[fitz1888]

Cheers, just didn't want to be putting in extra work so no reason.

[Trick]

no prob, basically, do what you feel up to. If your abs are stiff as hell, give em a day of, just like you'd do if your shoulders were stiff. In the end, your body will tell you when it needs a break.

Peace,
Trick

[jason100x]

no prob, basically, do what you feel up to. If your abs are stiff as hell, give em a day of, just like you'd do if your shoulders were stiff. In the end, your body will tell you when it needs a break.

That's the best advice right there. If you feel you need a break it's better to take one then injure yourself later.

[Banderivets]

Well not really.

I hit the bag every day, pushups, sit ups, every day. Except sunday. Using WEIGHTS you should give 24h between workouts on each muscle group. That's kinda general. If you're lifting light weights, than the resting period is a little less.

When you lift heavy you tear fibers, and you need to let them recover. Most bodyweight exercises are more about muscle fatigue than tearing. I think we can all do one push-up right? You don't tear many fibers in these things, you fatigue them. So it does not damage your body (not to say you wont get tired by saturday night) by doing pusp-ups, sutups, etc every day.

So ya, do those situps every day if you can, you'll definitly notice a difference.

Any stress on muscle will cause the proteins to split.

If you do 500 pushups, you will split fibres (build muscle).

You just have to do A LOT more body weight sets to gain results similar to those in lifting weights, say bench press vs. pushups.

[Trick]

Haha, sfdmalex, you're refuting my statements everywhere man. And from a fellow canadian...

No, those bodyweight exercises are not the same. Ya, they tear fibers, but not like heavy lifting does. I do hundreds of push-ups a day, but my bench press is weak. And if you look at me, I'm a small guy, like 155. Trust me man, I don't go to university because I like to write exams, I try to learn some **** too. Muscle fatigue is NOT the same as muscle tearing. When you lift heavy, you fatigue those muscles, and you REALLY tear them. When you lift light, you may REALLY fatigue those muscles, but not do TOO much tearing. Now, I'm no huge Tyson fan, but I hear he did like 1000 pushups a day. Do you think he could also bench like 400lbs a day too? Trust me man, it's different,

Peace,
Trick

[PunchDrunk]

Haha, sfdmalex, you're refuting my statements everywhere man. And from a fellow canadian...

No, those bodyweight exercises are not the same. Ya, they tear fibers, but not like heavy lifting does. I do hundreds of push-ups a day, but my bench press is weak. And if you look at me, I'm a small guy, like 155. Trust me man, I don't go to university because I like to write exams, I try to learn some **** too. Muscle fatigue is NOT the same as muscle tearing. When you lift heavy, you fatigue those muscles, and you REALLY tear them. When you lift light, you may REALLY fatigue those muscles, but not do TOO much tearing. Now, I'm no huge Tyson fan, but I hear he did like 1000 pushups a day. Do you think he could also bench like 400lbs a day too? Trust me man, it's different,

Peace,
Trick

It's different, but not in the way you say. Obviously, doing 1000 reps of a 400 lbs bench press will do more damage to your muscle than 1000 BW pushups.

There's a relationship between the intensity (weight pre rep) and the workload (amount of reps), and it is the total of these two that determines the wear and tear on your body.

Something you seem to forget is that bodyweight exercises can also be very heavy, low rep lifts, so no, there is no magic line that separates BW exercises from weight exercises in terms of muscle damage, strength adaptaions, etc.
It's all in the intensity/workload.

Lifting heavy for low reps, the way it should be done for sports, is NOT about tearing muscle, as you say. That is a misunderstanding on your part, probably because you mistake STRENGTH training for bodybuilding. For strength, you lift heavy, yes, but you keep the number of sets, and reps so low that muscular damage is kept to a minimum. If not, you're overreaching, and it'll most likely hurt your other, more specific training. Strength training is mostly about NEURAL adaptations, not mass building (which is what the tearing you talk about will accomplish, if you eat and take time to recover, that is...). So the point is, heavy lifting should not be done to failure, because then you're not working on the parameters you want from doing it in the first place.

Sure you can bench press 400 lbs. a day. (if you can bench 400 at all, that is ) But if you do it multiple sets, to failure, you won't be able to. But that's the same with pushups, if you do too many, you won't be able to do those every day either, youĝll overreach, and then go into overtraining. You can do too much of everything, and it'll come back to haunt you. Like I said, there's no magic divider between the two.

How many handstand pushups can you do every day? Will 500 tear your muscle, or just will it just be fatigue?

[Trick]

Ya, sorry, I shouldn't imply that bodyweight exercises are light or anything. I just had push-ups in my head as I just did them, and that's usually what people think of when they think of bodyweight exercises. I basically just meant for things of low intensity. For example, when i was a X-country runner, I used to run 8km a day, every day (except sundays, and sometimes saturday). And that did nothing but help. But yes, as usual, Punch Drunk is correct.

[fitz1888]

Well i'm doing ok so far, i done my usual abs workout on tuesday then halfed every exercise on wednesday and then done the full lot today (thursday), and no problems so far.