The advice you got is WAY off the mark! After 1 day of rest, you haven’t even fully RECOVERED yet from an intense workout, let alone started having to worry about your muscles atrophying.

Most pro bodybuilders work every body part once or twice a week at the most, and work other body parts while the originally worked muscles are recuperating.

If you are working out for 2 to 3 hours at an intense pace, 1 workout per week per body part will be plenty. Back that up with plenty of high quality protein at EVERY meal, and you’ll be golden.

I have one more question.

How long should one rest after an intense (2-3 hour, 1 minute rest) workout with heavy weight lifting? Ive been told that after 1 day of rest, your muscles automatically begin deteriorating, and needs to be followed up with another workout… thought I might get a professional opinion.

Yes, this workout will do wonders for your chest muscles. Be sure to check out Part I of this post as well to see some other chest exercises.

As far as milk, quality protein should ALWAYS be a part of a muscle-building routine, especially directly after a workout.

Be sure to change up the way that you workout on a regular basis, and to also allow plenty of time for your muscles to recuperate from any resistance training. If you over train, you’ll do more harm than good.

There is no ONE exercise that is the end all, be all of getting bigger muscles. Yes, push ups are one of the most effective exercises for arms/shoulders/triceps, but cross-training is critical to ensure that you continue to get results, and that you don’t get an overuse injury.

Thanks

The cool thing is that I can do this at home , with my heavy work schedule I tend to have difficulty going to the gym ( travel time , psyching myself up etc…). At least with these exercises I can burn some calories at the comfort of my own house.

As with all exercise modalities, the number of reps to do is subjective to the goal of the individual, their level of fitness, their endurance, etc.

As a general rule, you can do bodyweight exercises to the point of muscle failure and get A LOT out of it – and no, it won’t stunt your growth. At your age, you need to stay away from maximal resistance training – meaning heavy squats, bench presses, etc. Maxing out on resistance exercises is what closes the presently open growth centers in your bones, and that is what stunts growth.

Doing a push up routine is just like most other workouts in that you just go from one exercise to the next rather than just doing the max for that one exercise over and over again.

You could do these 4 exercises all the way through – going for max reps each time – and I guarantee that after 3 sets or so, you’ll be wiped out. Also, you could add in variety by changing the speed at which you do the exercises, and that would give you an overall higher level of results.