Many bodybuilding beginners tend to go overboard with their bodybuilding efforts. They want to workout on all the days without taking even a day off in between because they are under the impression that this is the way to a successful muscle building program. However, this is not true.

In bodybuilding, there is no such thing as doing 'too much practice' as it can lead to injury and unnecessary complications. You should not over train your muscles beyond their natural capacities in your quest for better muscle growth.

Every individual has different strengths and capacities. Therefore, the amount of rest you take varies greatly with the age, gender, weight, and fitness levels of each individual. The general thumb rule followed is that your body should never feel sore or fatigued before you go to the gym for a workout. Older bodybuilders usually tend to take longer rest periods than young and energetic people.

Remember not to exert or workout your muscles at all when they are sore. Usually, the degraded muscles take 5 to 7 days to recover from the strain of weight training. Do not work them during this rest period when the muscle repair, recovery, replenishment and growth are at a peak. Overstraining your muscles during this crucial rest period could halt the recovery process and even cause permanent injury.

Rest is the time interval between subsequent workouts, when minimum amount of calories get expended because the body is not made to work during this period. As a result, your body can focus undisturbed on the repair mechanism (by employing the process of protein synthesis), rather than on fueling your workouts using all of the nutrients and supplements that are taken in during this phase of rest to promote maximum repair of your degraded muscle fibers.

Nevertheless, you can involve the damaged muscle to support the workout of other muscles in your body. This will not prevent or delay the recovery of your damaged muscle in anyway.

You can try dividing your muscles into groups and training each group separately using the 'split training' technique. For instance, you can workout your chest and legs on one day and back and arms on the next day. Therefore, you are able to devote ample time to the worked out muscles in your body to recuperate and grow.