Timing of when you should workout really depends upon a multitude of factors. The most appropriate plan is contingent upon how long you have been training, your age and fitness level, your goals, and whether you cease to make gains and strides.

The most appropriate plan in the beginning for a beginner is to do whole body workouts two or three times a week, where you are not going to failure and keeping the weights low so you don’t risk injury. You want to activate your muscles and this is the best way to do so.

After you are done with that phase and cease to make muscle gains, then you need to split it up into two workouts consisting of an upper body workout and a lower body workout, each being performed twice a week. This will allow you to train more vigorously and concentrate on activating more muscle fibers and your stabilizer muscles. It will also allow more time for your body to recover between workouts.

After the second phase is done, you can move onto an advanced regimen where you are working your individual muscle groups one at a time. This really puts a lot of strain on your muscles, but the good news is that you give them a full week off every time you work them. Through this phase, you really work your muscles a tremendous amount and you need adequate rest between workouts.

If you train the same muscle everyday, you do not give it time to recuperate. It needs approximately 48 hours to recover fully and then some to grow. You grow outside the gym and not inside, remember that. The gym is a stimulus, but your body responds outside of the gym with proper rest and proper nutrition.

Additionally, you want to plan your workouts so that each muscle group is trained on a different day. Biceps are worked with back so you may want to train them on the same day or push them as far away as possible. Same goes with chest and shoulders or chest and triceps.

More importantly, see how you respond to what you do. Constantly gauge yourself. If you don’t see a particular muscle group growing, attack it harder than before and give it even more time to recuperate than you’re used to.