By: Sean Nalewanyj
Submitted: 2009-11-05 23:50:57 | Word Count: 784
To be successful, you have to take charge of yourself and exercise consistency and discipline. The saying goes that "80% of success is showing up," and for the most part, I'd say that's true.
Trying to pack on muscle mass requires the same level of commitment. You've got to stay tight to your workout schedule and get yourself into the gym even when it's the last thing on your mind.
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Or should you?
Look…
Yes, it is important to be consistent. Yes, you need to be faithful to your workout schedule most of the time if you plan to pack on muscle mass.
However, there is an interesting quote from the late Mike Mentzer that goes "Rituals have nothing to do with science." One thing to consider is that the human body is a very complex biological "machine," and all workout and recovery periods are not equal.
When you wake up feeling exhausted with achy muscles, and you're missing that typical excitement on a training day… don't think that your body is sending you a message?
At that point, it's foolish to force yourself to go and try to pack on muscle mass when more recovery time is needed and you know your training performance won't be great. If your mind, body, and muscles are still recovering from the previous workout, you should not force yourself into the gym in an attempt to pack on muscle mass.
After all, we know that the recovery phase is the ultimate "muscle builder" (the actual process of adding new muscle tissue occurs out of the gym on resting days) and that intense weight training is extremely demanding on the body as a whole…
So, if your body is able to pack on muscle mass, why would you interfere with the process?
The key here is to take that time off to recover, and head back to the gym only when you really are ready to do so. What harm could there be?
Your size or strength will not be affected by two or less than two weeks of inactivity, so why not? Yet, there is the perfectly likely reality of a positive gain in the form of proper recovery from the previous workout and improved performance on the following workout.
All you have to do is listen to your body. Rituals truly do not have anything to do with how you pack on muscle mass, and if it feels obvious to you that additional rest is needed, take it.
Don't push your body until it's ready to do battle with the weights again. And hey, just because some dude said you should "never skip a workout," doesn't mean it's true.
Don't get tricked, though...
Don't get so cozy with this mindset that you only train to pack on muscle mass if you want to, because you could very easily delay your workouts out of laziness, not because your body isn't ready. There are plenty of times when you won't feel like training to pack on muscle mass purely for psychological reasons rather than concrete physical reasons, and that's not what I'm talking about here.
You should only stop working for a day when you truly, physically need it. Bear in mind… there's no long-term harm if you take an extra day off to rest, but there can be immediate harm if you train your body to pack on muscle mass when you are not ready.
