You know you are supposed to take a days rest between intense exercise...

[upahill]

Well I've been following Biggest Loser and at the end it said they have done over 200 training sesssions in 2 months. That is more than 3 a day.

How would their muscles rest and recover. I understood it was the recovery period that changed the body shape.
Or is it in their case they had so much weight to lose initally it was for burning calories?

[GeneCowan]

Charlotte Ord answers some of this in her blog

[upahill]

Thanks for that. It's interesting reading.

[Meglet]

I used to work out 6 days a week. But I would alternate a hard session (pump / kickboxing / boxercise) with a yoga / pilates / dance class the next day. And I ate lots of veggie protein to build the muscle back up.

I did end up very fit and never had any problems doing it that way.

[upahill]

I understand about the altering sessions but doing 4 a day for 2 months sounded intense (I know it was supposed to be!!) so I just wondered how they had muscle recovery.

[upahill]

I meant alternating!!!

[FredFredGeorge]

You don't need to take a day off, what you do need to do is manage your overall load of exercise; how much more you do each week (on average). The easiest way to ensure you're not over-doing it is to simply rest lots. But that doesn't let you do the maximum amount of exercise - you make absolutely sure you recover, but sacrifice fitness gains.

The coach, the management of lifestyle, and ensured recovery helps with the biggest loser, although they are not doing particularly tough workouts to recover from, which is again where the coaching helps.

The best thing you can do yourself is ensure you get easy to digest protein immediately after the session (chocolate/strawberry milk being the easiest source for most) and build up to training more. The type of exercise does make a different, pure aerobic efforts that have little impact on the legs (cycling at a good cadence) are easier than running with the bounding.

Before DD I've had months without a rest day, now I'd rather spend more time with DD so often have days without when I'm otherwise busy.

[lovesineffable]

It really depends on what your definition of intense is, and how long a session is, really everyone is different, just go by how you feel, push yourself a bit..but not too much.