Curious about your breakdown between heavy lifting vs. cardio. I find that I can't do more than 4x/week of heavy lifting, so I've been trying to run (or something else) on the remaining 3 days.
Recovery is a thing, but I find most of us non-athletes as a job can do way more than we think. I lift heavy 3-4 times/week. Cardio 2-3 days/week. Sometimes I might lift heavy at 6am and then do cardio at 6pm depending on my schedule.
If I show up at the gym and really feel lacking, I do a different muscle group. If I show up to the gym and I'm supposed to do bench, but I'm hurting - squat instead. Squats struggling? Do a pull up workout (I'm trying to get to 500 pull ups in a single workout). Whole upper body hurt? Push the sled around. Or do a full body weight workout which acts more as an active recovery.
There are a limitless amount of things that can be done.
I'm in my 40s. Too often people use a 'recovery day' to just skip the gym. Life throws enough curve balls, that few of us need a scheduled recovery day.
You're doing better than me then :-) I do 4 days of heavy lifts a week, and the other days are rest days. I don't schedule deload weeks though, as life causes those (work crunches, colds, family holidays etc).
> I find that I can't do more than 4x/week of heavy lifting
To quote Mark Rippetoe (it's likely in the article somewhere on his site, but I primarily consume his advice via podcast), "you don't get strong in the gym (as you mainly tear muscle in the gym) - you get strong when you sleep and recover".
How many grams of protein do you consume? Trying to eat the recommended amount (0.5 - 1.0 g / lb-bodyweight) seems like a lot of effort at first, but has amazing effects on recovery, especially for resistance exercise.
If I show up at the gym and really feel lacking, I do a different muscle group. If I show up to the gym and I'm supposed to do bench, but I'm hurting - squat instead. Squats struggling? Do a pull up workout (I'm trying to get to 500 pull ups in a single workout). Whole upper body hurt? Push the sled around. Or do a full body weight workout which acts more as an active recovery.
There are a limitless amount of things that can be done.