Can having too much time between lifting be detrimental to your results? I have a set of 10 exercises I used to do all in one workout period. I worked out M, W, and F, because I know you're supposed to have time to recuperate between workouts. However, it was a long workout, so I split it into two workouts. I've been lifting every other day, so I do five of the exercises one day, skip a day do the other five exercises, skip a day, and repeat. This means there are three days between workouts of the same set of exercises.

I wouldn't mind lifting every day, because each workout is now shorter. However, would this be bad, because I wouldn't be allowing enough time between workouts? Granted, each of the ten exercises works different muscles, but I'm sure there is some overlap in some of them.

Am I losing any muscle-building/fat burning gains by lifting every other day, which means there are three days between each exercise group? For example: M: group 1, W: group 2, F: group 1, Sun: group 2, etc. That means there are three days (T, W, and Th) between the exercises I do in group 1.

Here are the exercises I do:

Group 1: bench press, lunges (w/ dumbbells), back press, standing calf raises, one-arm dumbbell rows.

Group 2: upright rows, squats (w/ dumbbells), triceps dips, lying leg curl, curls (biceps).

Thanks in advance for you advice/thoughts on this.

Why not swap the one armed rows from group 1 with the triceps dips from group 2? That way you'd have more of a push/pull split which you can do on back-to-back days. Either that or try an upper/lower split

If this helps--my goals are to lose body fat. The weight lifting is more of a fat-burning strategy than a "body-building" one. I'm currently on a daily 20% calorie deficit and also doing steady-state cardio and HIIT.

So, if I switched the one armed rows with the triceps, it would be okay to do something like: Mon: group 1; Tues: group 2; Wed: group 1; Thurs: group 2; Fri., Sat., Sun: rest? If so, I think I'll try that. And then, after a while, I think I'll try the upper/lower split--I did a little reading on that.

Thanks!

I'd have thought that would be OK but If you're going to be training 4 days a week why not train M,T,T,F and have Wednesday off for a little extra recovery time?

I agree with CCR on the split but, if you have just started with the program, you may even want to rotate your exercises over a period of six days (three of each split every week). Plus, if you are doing higher reps for fat burning (12+), you will have less need for recovery time.

Good luck