So, I am taking weight training at school. We have been lifting weights (same muscles) everyday this week and last. I've been really sore on my shoulder and pectorial (is that a word) muscles. I've been doing weights at home for the past 2 years or so and I thought you were supposed to take breaks in between workouts for you muscles to regrow. But when I confronted my coach about this he just dismissed it and said it is not needed.

So who's right?

Well it depends. If each workout works different muscles, then I don't believe rest is needed. You aren't really supposed to work out the same muscles everyday and are supposed to give them rest or so I've been told.

So far, we've just been doing squats and bench presses. I've been adding 10 pounds to my weight every other day (I'm now at 120 for benching, I'm only 14)

You spoke to your couch? And moreover, it spoke back? :blink:

Your entire routine consists of squats and bench press?

I have certain talents.

if your working the same muscles each day then definitely your muscles will need a day or two to recuperate, however for specifics you should talk to your doctor, and include the discussion you had with your co[au]ch

if this is only on school days then your weekends should be plenty of time for your muscles to recuperate

Of the weight lifting, yes. We do stretches and warm-ups for about 15-20 minutes before hitting the weight room. Then he usually assigns us squats, different kinds, such as overhead, front and shoulder (which kill my shoulders unless I'm lucky enough to get to the padded bar first) on different days. Then we usually do benches. It rare that he assigns something else.

Here in the northern hemisphere we call them couch whisperers. It's a rare, but useful ability when you lose your remote.

Neither, it's both.

You are correct in that strenuous workouts cause damage to the individual muscle fibers and that they need time to repair. When they do repair they are thicker and stronger than before, this is what bodybuilders do to get their desired results. It is called hypertrophy. However your coach is right in that it is not always necessary to rest a day because not every workout damages the muscle fibers to the point that they need rebuilding. This is why someone can do hundreds of pushups each day without really needing to take a day off, I know because we never got a day off in basic training. So it really depends on the type of workout you are doing.

One thing you might try is to vary the intensity of each workout so that you have Heavy, Medium and Light days. I'll take your benchpress number as an example. I'll be using a total of five sets per day.

Mon/Hev - 90, 95, 100, 105, 110
Tue/Lit - 90, 90, 90, 90, 90
Wed/Med - 90, 90, 95, 95, 100
Thu/Lit - 90, 90, 90, 90, 90
Fri/Hev - 95, 100, 105, 110, 115

The next week add 5 pounds to each set, keep adding 5 pounds per week until you cannot finish a full five sets. When this happens go back to the weight you were using three weeks before and build back up to your sticking point. This should give you enough recovery time between heavy days and give you ample time to practice your form on the light days. You could also do your heavy day on Wednesday and move the medium days to Monday and Friday.

If it does, then be sure to add in deadlifts and pull-ups/chin-ups. At the moment you're working your chest but not your back, which will lead to all sorts of postural problems down the line. If your coach says otherwise then he's not qualified to do his job.

What the heck, did just about everyone in here miss the point that he's only 14 ?

You're not old enough to be doing weight lifting and by far you should not be doing it more than twice a week as you start out even if you were old enough, unless you're aiming for a weightlifters bulky body rather than just a generally fit body.

At that age your body is very fragile, through the age of 10 - 15 you should be allowing your body to grow without taking too much pressure, if you work it too hard during the most important years of growths you can get all sorts of problems. I myself worked my body too hard as a child and ended up with osgood schlatter, a disease caused by putting too much stress on the patellar tendon which leads to excessive bone growth in the area.

Anyway it's your body but as far as I know you need to give yourself rest between workouts and also I'm quite surprised whatever coach you have even lets you weight lift at your age.

He's fine, lol. Our whole football team started weight training at 14 (Freshman year) and it was okay.

He is still a year or two too early if he wants to make certain his weight training doesn't come back to bite him when he gets older. Considering he has a good 40+ years to work out his body I don't think a single year or two off that is going to make such a big difference.

I was more concerned by the fact he was talking to furniture.

Well, that does seem pretty rough for a novice trainee. I know the Bulgarian method (at least from what I know of it through the writings of John Broz) involves multiple daily training sessions to failure, which seems insane, but apparently you adapt to it and never quite hit your real max (which means less chance of injury), because you're constantly working your ass off. It's only when you have a meet or whatever that you reduce the volume so you CAN hit your real max during competition. However, before you adapt to the constant training load, it is complete hell. However, like I said, it seems rough for a novice; I don't know if that's cool. I would suggest that you do tons of research on your lifts to make sure you're doing them with the safest technique possible and also take care of your aches and pains with self myofascial release (foam rolling).

If you take weekends off, it's still cool, though I personally would've taken the break in between days as well. I can't find a single magazine, website or personal trainer that would endorse such a routine, but oh well!

I noticed, I don't see the problem though. 14 year old boys were expected to do all kinds of manual labor in the not so distant past. Physiologicaly 14 year olds today can still handle it. I began my foray into resistance/strength training in earnest shortly before turning 10. I was inspired by an interview with Bruce Jenner and began doing bodyweight exersizes on a daily basis. I was about 12-13 when I started incorporating free weights. By the time I was 16 I could benchpress my own body weight, squat almost twice my weight and curl almost half my weight. Of course I was still pretty small so it wasn't much weight to begin with. Now if a 14 year old wanted to do olympic style powerlifting I would say they should wait a few years before trying to break any records, but there is nothing inherently dangerous about the training in general.

I think adding 10 pounds every other day at 14 is a little overkill. If you tear a muscle at this age, you may never be able to use it in the same way. Doing some weights is ok at your age, but you probably shouldn't be doing really intense workouts, especially because it can stunt your growth.

I taught some of my rolls how to beg for food the other day. It takes forever to teach them, though.

You could curl half your weight?! Besides the massive guys, most people at my gym don't go over 40 pounds.

Your coach sounds like an idiot. not to mention younger kids aren't even supposed to be lifting weights. And your doing the same routine everyday? That dude should get fired for incompetence.

Then they got all high and mighty and started refusing their services unless we gave them their own independent nation. Ended up with a lot of fighting, and leg strain from people having to get up to change the channel, but eventually they got their independence.

And that's how Belgium was created.

They had one of those EZ Curl barbells in my Highschool weight room and I would slap a 25 lb plate on each side and knock out 2-3 reps. I was more concerned about proper form so I never tried to up the weight beyond that. I only weighed about 115 at the time but I did a lot of pullups and chinups. If you think about it the chinup has a lot of the same mechanics as the curl so there is quite a bit of carryover. How many people do you see doing pullup or chinups at the gym? Odds are most of them do some sort of lat pull down instead using a fraction of thier body weight for resistance.

I don't know what I could curl now, I have not touched a barbell or dumbbells in about 11 years. But I still do a lot of pullups so...

It could have gone wrong in so many levels at that age, some people don't end up having problems but some do, I generally think it's not worth it to take the risk.

I myself started developing osgood schlatter around the age of 10 which I ignored to start with since I didn't know what it was and by the age of 11 I got it in my other knee and the knee where it started in had bulged so I was certain then that there was something wrong and that I wasn't just aching from working too hard (granted I was but I mean in a different way) and I ended up being told I should stop working my legs so much until I stop growing unless I wanted to end up in a wheelchair.

That being told to someone practicing in gymnastics, track & field sports & football while cycling a good 10 - 20 KM (yes I know it's not that much but it's much for a kid that age) every other day or so who also goes swimming on weekends with someone who is practicing it and just wants to race and train more is pretty bad.

I ended up having to lay down my passion for sports in favor of things I ended up loving even more (got a love-hate relationship with my osgood schlatter, on one hand it svcked, and on the other it's the reason I got into gaming and such :tes: ) and now 7 years later I haven't practiced anything else really but I'm just about old enough to start working myself as much as I want, it's very rare that I even feel my osgood schlatter these days but then again now I'm lazy and very much doubt I will get into sports as much as I used to :sweat:

But the point I'm trying to get across here is that you can have two children with similar backgrounds but very different results. So I'm not saying there is a 100% chance OP would have any health problems due to working out at a young age, but there is a risk involved which I generally don't find to be worth it to take. And I'm even lucky, I can get back to sports later or even perhaps now since I'm close to having stopped growing I think, but there are other problems that could be developed more severe than osgood schlatter that can be more permanent.