How many times a week can I workout the same muscle?

It depends on your goals so...

• See how many times a week you can work out to build bigger muscle
• See how many times a week you can work out to maintain muscle size
• See how many times a week you can work out to firm & tone muscles

If you're trying to get bigger muscles...

Then you only want to work out the same muscle about 1-to-2 times a week or even less than that because you have to remember...

To get bigger muscles - you have to give your muscles time to rest after you workout to grow and get stronger (See how you get bigger muscles) but you have to get stronger each time you workout to get bigger muscles and usually...

The harder your workout is (meaning the heavier the weights you use & the more sets and reps you do) = the more time you need to rest a muscle so for example...

• A person doing a workout where they bench press 350 pounds for 5 sets of 8 reps probably needs to rest 2-to-3 weeks between workouts to rest their muscles long enough so their muscles can get strong enough to lift more weights, do more reps and/or sets for the next workout so they can keep building bigger & bigger muscles while on the other hand...
• A person doing a workout where they bench press 100 pounds for 5 sets of 8 reps probably only needs to rest 2-to-4 days between workouts to rest their muscles long enough to get strong enough to lift more weights, do more reps and/or sets for the next workout so they can keep building bigger & bigger muscles and of course...
• As their workout gets harder & harder as they lift heavier weights, do more reps and sets they would need to rest longer & longer between workouts but...

The best way to know for sure how many times a week you can work out the same muscle is...

If you have a hard time increasing the amount of weight, sets and/or reps you use for 2-to-3 workouts in a row then...

That's a real good sign you need to rest more in between your workouts to give your muscles time to get bigger and stronger so you can lift heavier weight, do more sets and/or reps to keep continually build bigger muscles so for example...

• Let's say you start doing squats to get a bigger butt and let's say on Monday you do 5 sets of squats for 5 reps using 100 pounds and then on Thursday you do 5 sets using 105 pounds for 6 reps - so far so good because you increased the weight and reps but...
• Let say on next Monday - you do another squat workout but you can't do more than 105 pounds or no more than 6 reps...
• Then that means you need to rest more so by the time you do squats again... You can squat more than 105 pounds or do more than 6 reps to make your legs get bigger so...

Whenever you find that you are not getting stronger each time you workout by not lifting heavier weight reps and/or sets then its best that you rest more and remember this...

If you are not getting stronger each time you workout...

Then you are not building bigger muscles because doing the same workout over and over with the same amount of weight, reps, and sets will give you the same results over and over and that's why...

If you just want to maintain your muscle size & strength...

You can do the same workout over & over using the same weight, reps, and sets once a week or even once a month to maintain the muscle size you have and you won't have to worry about losing much muscle mass unless you stop working out for a long time and...

If you want to firm up your muscles without building big muscles...

• You can work out that same muscle 2-to-3 times a week but...
• Use light-to-moderate weights avoiding real heavy weights and...
• Do less than 5 sets for that muscle and...
• Do 8-to-12 reps for each exercise and...
• You only need to increase the weight if doing 8-to-12 reps is very easy.

 

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