There's a fine line differentiating training hard and overtraining that many often ignore. While the former often yields positive results, Rich Gaspari recently opined that the extra training leading to overtraining should be put into recovery.

Gaspari shared an Instagram video on May 14, where he got candid about how muscle growth depends heavily on rest and recovery, a simple truth that most tend to forget. While several athletes have a mentality to ‘push their body to the limits,’ 'The Dragon Slayer' implied that this shouldn't be done without proper recovery.

“A lot of guys think, I’m gonna go right back into the gym. Big mistake!” points out Gaspari, who revealed that he sometimes took timeouts as long as two weeks to allow his body to rest and recover after a major show.

Gaspari also advocated avoiding workouts like double sessions of cardio and restricting calories, low carbs, among other things. In his opinion, these things actually end up putting the body through physical, mental, and also neurological stress.

The video highlighted one of the most overlooked fundamentals of bodybuilding and training: Rest. No matter how much you train, it is crucial to realize that muscle growth does not happen at the gym while you are lifting.

Rather, it happens specifically during recovery, when the torn muscle tissue rebuilds itself to be bigger and stronger.

However, this one is far from being the only piece of advice Gaspari has shared for bodybuilding aspirants. Besides advocating for rest, he has also spoken about how to build bigger muscles.

Rich Gaspari Reveals the Secret to Growing Muscle

Most people commonly misunderstand the methods to grow muscle mass and end up destroying them at the gym with overtraining. Although training consistency is important, according to Gaspari, the secret behind muscle growth lies in 'training to failure.'

“People have asked me what is the best method in building muscle? The point is you have to train a muscle to complete failure to get a muscle to break down," said Gapari.

However, the 63-year-old didn't miss out on stressing the role of proper rest and recovery to build muscles. Besides his previous comments, he also said, "But to get a muscle to build, it’s during the recovery and rest that your muscles will grow."

Apart from highlighting the benefits of the 'training to failure' method, Gaspari also shed light on the effectiveness of training a few times a week consistently, rather than daily training with low rest and recovery.

In his opinion, the best method to grow muscles and stay fit is not endless hours at the gym, but smart training loads and proper recovery.

So, now that you know about Gaspari's guidelines, are you planning to incorporate them in your training routine?

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Written by

Avantika Das

Edited by

Souvik Roy