If you work hard, you'll succeed. It's undeniable. It's a simple fact of life. It applies to everything from school to work to bodybuilding.

Or does it? When it comes to bodybuilding, don't be so quick to assume that working out as often and as long as possible will net you the biggest gains.

You see, bodybuilding is different from all other aspects of life in that regard: the longer your practice playing the piano, the better of a piano player you'll be. The harder you study for that math test, the better you'll do. For everything else in life, putting in many hours of hard work will return the greatest gains.

This simply isn't the case for bodybuilding. In fact, working out too often for too long can actually be detrimental to your muscle gains! It's called "overtraining", and it's a very common mistake for bodybuilders of all ages and skill levels.

The human body is programmed to adapt to stress placed upon it. For instance, if you run a marathon every day, your body will become very lean and adapted to long distance running. If you work outside in the blazing sun all day, your skin will darken its pigment so that it protects itself from further exposure to the hot sun. The same applies for muscles - the more stress you put on your muscles, the more they will adapt to this increased stress by growing larger and stronger.

BUT... and this is a very big "but"... your muscles can only adapt at a certain rate. They require adequate time for recovery between each workout. When you work out, you break down your muscle tissues, and they need time and nutrients in order to rebuild themselves bigger and stronger than before. The amount of time they need to recover varies by person, but is usually at least 5 days.

Here are some simple rules to live by to avoid overtraining:

- Do not train each muscle group more than once per week. That means if you trained your legs on Monday, you shouldn't train them again until the following Monday.

- Do not train more than four times per week. This basic principle means that you should break up your workouts by muscle group, but not train more than four times per week. Three training sessions per week is usually ideal.

- Perform no more than 10 sets per each large muscle group (thighs, back, chest) and no more than 5 sets per small muscle group (shoulders, biceps, triceps, calves, abs). A more reasonable number would be 5-7 sets for large muscle groups and 3-5 sets for smaller ones.

- Don't workout for more than an hour at a time. After an hour, your body begins to break down its own muscle tissue to supply its energy needs. This can be negative. The hormone that breaks down muscle is called "cortisol", and it's a bad thing! (Note: this hour time frame does not include your warmup, stretching, or cool-down - it's OK to go beyond an hour to include those things).

These are very simple guidelines, but you'd be surprised at how many people train far too long and far too often. Most people are very ignorant of such important muscle building basics.

To find out more information on overtraining and other muscle building topics, visit The Muscle Building and Weight Gain Guide, your one stop website for everything related to bodybuilding. Whatever you're looking for - workout plans, expert articles, product reviews - you'll find it at MuscleGainGuide.com.

Mike Bowman is the senior editor at MuscleGainGuide.com. He has years of experience in bodybuilding and is the author of hundreds of renowned muscle building articles.