I'm a firm believer of whole-body training, and when it comes to better results, I believe it's important to train seven days a week.

Now, there's no reason to worry about overtraining, because the human body is designed to work every day without rest. With the right full-body training program, you can safely work your entire body—every day—without injury.



Below are three reasons why I believe eliminating rest days will improve your training results.

Reason 1: Better Fat Burning

Now, it's obvious that the more work you do, the more calories you burn, and therefore the more fat you lose. However, there's another trick resistance training has up its sleeve, and that's activating metabolic genes in muscle fibers.

Better Fat Burning

When you train your muscles daily with weights, you activate these metabolic genes in those muscle fibers each and every day. This keeps those genes turned on and activated, so you end up burning even more fat every single day.

Reason 2: Better Muscle Growth

The research actually shows that with full-body training and training every muscle group each and every day, muscle growth and strength may be improved. This goes back to that same gene activation in the muscle fibers.

Better Muscle Growth

Activating genes involved in muscle growth and synthesis each and every day through resistance training keeps those processes of protein synthesis turned on, which can lead to greater gains in both muscle size and strength. By never taking a day off, those synthesizing processes stay turned on.

Reason 3: Better Overall Health

Once again, the key to better overall health may lie in daily gene activation through exercise. Those genes that are involved in metabolism are also involved in health outcomes. Activating those metabolic genes each and every day through daily training may help promote longevity, while lowering the risk of diseases such as depression, heart disease, cancer, and type 2 diabetes.

Better Overall Health

Those are my three reasons why you should eliminate rest days. Check out my Full-Body 5x5s workout for more information on full-body training.



References
  1. Gjevestad, G. O., Holven, K. B., & Ulven, S. M. (2015). Effects of exercise on gene expression of inflammatory markers in human peripheral blood cells: a systematic review. Current Cardiovascular Risk Reports, 9(7), 34.

About the Author

Jim Stoppani, Ph.D.

Jim Stoppani, Ph.D.

Jim Stoppani holds a doctorate in exercise physiology from the University of Connecticut and has been the personal nutrition and health consultant to numerous celebrity clients, including...

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