Recovery between sessions

[Peter Andersen]

Hi Rip.

On page 144 of PPST you mention that you would expect a 48 to 72 hour recovery period between sessions for rank novices.

I was wondering, from your experience, what proportion of rank novices actually require that longer 72 hour recovery period?

With everyone just "doing the program" with its 48 hour inter-session recovery and making progress, I imagined that it could not be too many. But then, there must have been enough people that take the extra day to recover to make it worthwhile for you to mention.

Thanks in advance.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Nobody really requires 72 hours at the novice level, but it's there for 2 reasons:
1.) because MWF training leaves 72 hours between Friday and Monday, and since that's the way most people are going to train, we just stated it that way, and 2.) in the even that stress accumulates over the week, perhaps due to less-than-optimal diet or rest or lack of strict adherence to the program, the extra time allows for better recovery.