132 thoughts on “Training Frequency for Strength Development: What the Data Say”	
Kayne Johnston
Awesome article Greg. I really enjoyed how you went to the detail of separating the upper body pressing and quad dominant movements in your analysis to find more specific takeaways from a practical standpoint.
My guess would be that recovery from seemingly smaller muscle groups would neccessitate a need for higher frequency (i.e. less volume a day but higher quality) whilst still being quite well recovered between sessions. On the other hand, larger lower body muscles need more in terms of recovery and can hence be hit harder and less frequently, just a guess though.
Question: Assuming all above is valid, can it be that the studies factor in fatigue factors or other countering what ‘could’ have happened in the same individual? I guess what I mean is that one particular person in a study only did either high or low frequency (correct?) so we don’t know what that one persons response would have been with different approach. I guess I struggle because when I lift, I find that when I do certain exercises after other ones its just so tiring I don’t do much quality lifting (too tired). So doing 6 days a week of rear delts along with 6 days of general back?
Yeah, without a crossover design, you can’t know how each individual would have done on the opposite program (and crossover designs have limitations for training studies as well; I’m skeptical that a washout period truly gets people back to baseline). However, when pooling the results of studies on 300+ individuals, you can probably safely assume that most or all of those idiosyncratic individual differences will wash out. Your point in well-taken, though – what works best ON AVERAGE may not work best for each individual.
OK, that’s a really interesting article. My only question is about rep ranges. Was the same number of reps used for all training sessions or did they vary over the course of the week for some of the studies? Thanks.
I’d need to look back to be 100% sure, but I’m pretty sure all of these papers either used nonperiodized training, or linear periodization without any DUP elements. So reps would have been the same in all sessions withing each week, though in some studies they varied week-to-week.
Ok; thank you. Just one other point occurs to me. You say that hypertrophy is maximized with twice weekly training per body part. Is this the case for all body parts, or just upper body again? Thanks.
I’m not saying that. I’m saying we don’t have enough evidence to make conclusions about frequencies exceeding twice per week.
I read ur article on advocating low-frequency for increasing myonuclei in muscles in “Grow Like A New Lifter Again?” Did your stance change on this?
I still need to do a pretty big overhaul on that article. When in doubt, go with what I’ve written the most recently.
I believe that people are fixated on the phenomenon of hypertrophy. Without controversy, higher frequency workouts lead to maximum hypertrophy. But muscle growth occurs due to hyperplasia. There is no dispute, hyperplasia is not proven in humans, but proven in animals. I believe that high-frequency training harms the process of hyperplasia, because I have evidence that the number of nuclei in a cell increases only by day 6 after training. I think that there should be cycles of high-frequency and low-frequency training. Another question is the volume …..
Does myonuclear accretion not occur if another training session takes place between day 0 and day 6? I’m highly skeptical of that notion. If memory serves, in the Bamman and Petrella papers that looked at myonuclear accretion as an explanatory for the variability in hypertrophy after training, frequency was 3x/week, so the participants would never have been resting 6 days between workouts.
In the period when the nuclei have not yet formed, it is impossible to prevent growth. On the 6th-7th day, when they begin to appear, they are still young and vulnerable, they have not covered the filaments. It takes time to mature, training stress can reduce their population. If you carefully read the study of Bruusgaard J. 2010, you can understand it. That a longer period of successive loads only hurt. A longer break created favorable conditions for the growth of nuclei, which increased their number. But the most amazing thing is that their peak has reached far not on the 7th day of rest, but on the 14th day! There were 14 days of daily training, but during this period the number of cores in the pictures has increased slightly. For the 14th day of rest, their number has grown incredibly!
Moreover, research says that a steady increase in muscle mass is achieved only by increasing the number of nuclei!
Which Bruusgaard study do you have in mind? And are you talking about satellite cell proliferation, or actual myonuclear accretion?
The study says actual myonuclear accretion
You’re misinterpreting that study pretty badly. Myonuclear number increased during the first 11 days of overload, basically stayed flat during the last 10 days of overload, and then didn’t change (didn’t increase or decrease) during the subsequent unloading period. Look back at figures 1B and 2B.
And regardless, I wouldn’t necessarily use this study to make direct inferences about time courses of muscle growth or recovery in humans. Synergist ablation is not the same as resistance training, and complete unloading is not the same as just taking rest days.
Here are human studies. On day 7 of consecutive workouts, the growth triggers went to no, despite muscle damage! Without growth stimuli, there can be no talk of an increase in the number of nuclei. High frequency training cannot be effective for muscle growth.
“Impact of repeated exercise on myogenic gene expression”
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6196503_Impact_of_repeated_bouts_of_eccentric_exercise_on_myogenic_gene_expression
This study didn’t even assess satellite cells or myonuclei.
In my opinion, the model of hypertrophy should be complex. I see that it was revealed through an experiment that a higher frequency of training shows better results. I suppose that the mechanism of the effect may be different. I saw studies that this effect is temporary, until 8 weeks, I can not find it, unfortunately. Do not you think that there should be an optimal balance between different mechanisms?
Yes, in this study, cell number was not measured, but growth stimuli are a prerequisite for cell growth. How can they go through the cell cycle without stimuli? It’s impossible. It is logical to assume that if they are not there, then the number of nuclei in the cell will not increase.
“Do not you think that there should be an optimal balance between different mechanisms?”
How are you defining “mechanisms”? I mean, there’s a wide array of cellular, mechanistic processes contributing to hypertrophy, regardless of the training program you’re on.
“It is logical to assume that if they are not there, then the number of nuclei in the cell will not increase.”
Unless every molecular factor contributing to cell growth and differentiation was measured, it could absolutely still be entirely possible for nuclei to increase. And regardless, that study involved six sets of 15 maximal eccentric contractions for six days straight, which doesn’t at all resemble how people actually train, so it’s tenuous to use the results of that study to argue about the time course of satellite cell proliferation and myonuclear addition under normal training conditions.
Thanks for the answer. I realized that the situation is very uncertain. The main problem I have to determine the weekly volume of work on 1 muscle group. Because of this, I began to be skeptical of everything. I can not find enough studies that would show how much sets should be made for 1 muscle group. Schoenfeld’s research was done with an idiotic set counting system. For the same example of training and the method of counting sets, other studies began to be done, not all studies, of course. He considered the number of sets performed per muscle group even from exercises that were not directly related to them. The study fits my criteria and according to their results, I concluded that the target, targeted, direct load on the muscle is enough to 10 sets. Which completely contradicts many studies that did not distinguish the direct load on the muscle from the non-direct. And they claimed that 15 sets was not enough! It caused me great bewilderment. Very, very, very hard, it is impossible to make so many sets to failure, even if you distribute them within a week, it burns emotionally. I train 15 muscle groups isolated. Please help resolve this issue.
I think the research looking at the effects of adding additional single-joint training to multi-joint training may be interest you:
These data don’t tell me anything. I did not see their training volume. I did not see their training progragram. Basic exercises can not effectively develop muscle synergists. Muscles such as the middle delta, biceps of the legs, forearm, front delta and other muscle groups. They do not have enough load with basic exercises. I’m talking about it. I do not argue that both basic exercises and isolating exercises can develop breasts lonely well. And I had a question, and how much volume does one muscle group need for maximum hypertrophy? Volume direct load.
Have you played around with the shiny app at all?
As for volume, it varies considerably person-to-person, and within an individual based on their context (bulk vs. cut, stress and sleep, training age, etc.). It’s impossible to give an exact number, or even a relatively small range.
No, what is this application? I understand that everything is individual. And that deviations can be very large. But I would like to know what the average opinion is in research. Suppose I am a normal person (medium height, weight, healthy diet, without stress, enough sleep, and so on)
Ahh, shit. I thought you were commenting on another article since we just published on yesterday. Each study (they’re all linked) describes the training program it used, though, if you want to look into them further.
And still, even for “normal” people, there’s a big range. It’s something to troubleshoot on an individual basis.
You upset me. I have not received any replies. I’m in the wanderings… I shoveled everything, I no longer have sources of information for reflection. Base NCBI is not infinite. Thought you inspire me with useful information. Though very controversial. But alas. I will experiment with training in the blind further
I’ve been replying to you for close to a week now.
Experimenting with your training is really all you can do to figure out what works best for you, as an individual.
I would like to see longer term studies and I would also like to see studies on long-term regular weight trainers. I have been training with weights reularlt for 43 years and am wondering about overuse injuries and how to retain higher strength levels over decades of training.
Recent Kin Grad here. Love the site, it’s made for some fun in class discussions! I was wondering how this analysis would work with something like the “Smolov” and “Smolov Jr.” high frequency programs? Would this analysis speak to their effectiveness or show that those programs are valid tools in increasing strength? And to follow up, is increasing frenquency something you should do year round, or apply it as another tool in the tool box when you hit a plateau?
I feel like, with Smolov and Smolov Jr, it’s hard to know whether they work for a lot of people because of the frequency, or whether it’s more due to the volume (especially for Smolov). Probably a combination of both. Of the two, I think Smolov Jr is the more sane.
I think the way you use higher frequencies should primarily depend on how well you can tolerate them. Some people have a tendency to get more overuse injuries with higher frequencies after several months, while other people are fine using them long-term. If you know that your start feeling banged up after a couple months of higher frequency, then I’d mainly save it as a tool to get past a plateau. Otherwise, I don’t see a good reason you could just keep frequency high year-round.
I imagine overhead pressing (and similar movements) are similar to bench pressing, but what about deadlifts compared to squats? Are deadlifts even more taxing than squats and would thus benefit from an even lower training frequency? (And what about heavy upper body pulls, such as weighted chin-ups?)
And how do rep ranges factor in? I’m guessing that 30-rep sets of push-ups are different from 3-rep sets of bench press, yeah?
There’s not enough data to get to that level of granularity. Just based on what I’ve seen, DLs probably shouldn’t be super high frequency, and upper body pulls can be high frequency. None of the studies included here used either really high or really low reps.
Good one Greg! Thanks for crunching all that data for us.
Hi! I changed my frequency from twice a week in squatting to 4 times a week. Of course some adjustments have to be done, such as accesories, daily volume and more, but my squat increased 40kg in 3-4 months since I started this (100kg for 3 to 140kg, very begginer numbers either way). My weighted dips increased 20kg as well. Overhead press and bent over rows were increasing also, but I hurt my wrist on non fitness activities and I couldn’t do them properly.
After that, I’ve done smolov (just the base cycle) and my squat increased another 15kg, and my dips another 10. Bottom line, my squat increased 55kg from march until now and my dips 30kg.
Well, I tried that approach to pull ups, but more to increase reps than weight itself, and it works too. I’m writing all this to affirm how much high frequency training helped my training overall.
55kg since March!?! That’s awesome, Otavio. Good work
I wish I could add 40kgs to my squat!
Would you mind sharing the break down of your weekly squatting, ie Sets x reps x weight?
“On average, trained subjects in the lower frequency groups (19 exercises across 8 studies) got 1.49% stronger per week.”
Am I missing something, or does this “low” number seem high? This would translate to going from a 200 lb bench to a 235 in twelve weeks and this is the slow progress group.
“Another drawback, similar to the periodization review, is that the “trained” lifters still weren’t super well-trained, so we can’t know how well these results would generalize to people who aren’t beginner or intermediate-level lifters”
I was picking 200 to be a round number at roughly intermediate level (albeit maybe a bit high). 18% in twelve weeks still seems like a lot for the average in the “bad” group, but I guess the meaning of “trained” is in the eye of the beholder.
This has been an issue with many of the studies if I remember correctly.
Even the control groups often have improvements that are huge by the standards of normal gym goers.
I believe Greg speculated that a lot of people, even those who claim to be “experienced lifters” may have never done a proper program before.
When reading the bit about bench frequency leading to higher strength gains, it makes me think of my good friend Randy, one of the strongest benchers at my gym, who is always benching, hahaha.
Really love the bit you wrote about how increasing frequency may increase volume for the same amount of effort, with your squatting 10 sets once per week vs squatting 5 sets thrice per week example.
Awesome article, thanks a lot 🙂 I’ll definitely be considering increasing my pushing frequency now 🙂
Isn’t the primary reason why higher frequency works better than lower frequency is because of more protein synthesis (therefore hypertrophy?), rather than your proposed higher quality sets?
It’s hard to say. Most studies measure mixed muscle protein synthesis, but what we specifically care about is myofibrillar muscle protein synthesis. Really granular myofibrillar MPS data is lacking. There’s also some evidence that per-muscle MPS is lower with full-body sessions than single-muscle workouts, and higher frequencies basically necessitate full-body sessions (assuming you actually train your whole body).
Hi Greg! Love your work. Just wondering if you were intending on doing any assessment of publication bias on the meta-analysis (e.g. Funnel plot, PET-PEESE). I remember you mentioning on the Everything Hertz podcast you were interested in investigating this more broadly in exercise science (via p-curve), but can’t see any mention of publication bias (perhaps outside mention of outliers) for this study. Should be easy enough to implement in R with metafor, if the raw data are available.
A funnel plot wouldn’t be of much use here, since all of the studies had basically the same number of subjects (between 9 and 20 per group) and basically the same standard error for effect size estimates (it would be less of a funnel, and more of a pancake). PET-PEESE is new to me. I’ll look into it. Any good sources you’d recommend?
For training studies, however, I don’t really think publication bias is worth worrying about. They take SO much work, if you do one, you’re going to get it published somewhere. Just assuming 20 total subjects, 45 minute training sessions, 3 sessions per week, and 8 weeks, you’re looking at 360 man hours in JUST training visits (plus recruitment, plus testing, plus waiting around for subjects who show up late, etc.). Some supplement training studies don’t get published if they were funded by industry and don’t get the results the supplement company was looking for, but straight-up training studies with no outside interests basically all get published. I think I discussed that on the podcast as well.
Good points. I hadn’t fully appreciated the small sample sizes. Agree the funnel plot probably wouldn’t work — actually I’d be surprised if most other techniques did either given the restricted standard errors. PET-PEESE would fall apart here – it’s a meta-regression method to estimate effect sizes if sampling error was minimal, but really isn’t applicable for uniformly small studies https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550617693062
It’d be nice to have some measure of bias, but doesn’t seem feasible. You make a reasonable argument on higher likelihood of publication given the sheer effort involved in doing this research. Thanks for the reply!
Hey Greg, your articles are always amazing. Thanks for that work. I have a brazilian blog related to calisthenics and fitness. Do you allow me to translate some of your articles and share them? Of course with your name as the author and the link of the original source.
Sure! As long as it’s not paid content.
Thanks for doing this Greg, very interesting to see. Meta-analysis seems to be the only way forward in gaining anything meaningful from the vast majority of S&C research. Far too often they’re under-powered, and frequently conclusions are drawn from non-significant trends, almost in a ‘grasping at straws’ type fashion. Do you think there’s any way to fix this, or is it always going to be a problem when pretty much any study done will get published?
So, I don’t necessarily think the small studies are a problem. I think drawing strong conclusions from small studies is a problem. And if people are doing small studies, I certainly hope they’re all getting published! Otherwise, it introduces publication bias into meta-analysis attempts.
I don’t see it changing any time soon, though. It ultimately comes down to money. You can get a big NIH grant to study sarcopenia or osteoporosis, and you MAY get lucky and get a big grant from Gatorade or Nike to study something related to sport performance (though most of their research is in-house), but for the most part, there’s just not much funding in sport science to run big studies.
Great article Greg! Thanks for doing all the hard work for us..
What would you say is the current consensus on the optimality of full-body versus split routines for muscle hypertrophy (assuming that total weekly volume is equated)?
I keep reading conflicting reports and advice on this issue.
I think the discussion should be more about frequency than full-body vs. split. I mean, you could have a split routine that’s still pretty high frequency (upper-lower-upper-lower-upper-lower-upper would be a split routine, but have a 4x/week frequency for upper body, and 3x for lower body). If you’re only training 3-4 times per week, though, higher frequencies are going to necessitate at least a few full-body sessions.
Thanks Greg. Yes, I agree about the frequency component. I guess I was wondering more about whether the sparseness of the sets in a FB session for a given muscle group and the decline in performance for exercises performed toward the end of the session might make FB less effective for hypertrophy compared with, say, an U/L split done several times per week.
I honestly doubt it matters. There were enough questions about hypertrophy, though, and I’m going to repeat this analysis for hypertrophy.
Thanks as always, Greg!
You mentioned just briefly the notion that strength is most strongly correlated to intensity (as opposed to frequency or volume). Is that still with the exception of bfr training? I remember your article on that saying strength gains were similar using bfr as with high loads. Or does bfr qualify as high intensity even though it’s low load high volume?
Nah. Adding low load BFR training to high load training boosts strength gains, but low load BFR training itself doesn’t lead to nearly as large of strength gains as high load training.
Would you need to add low load BFR to high load training of the same muscle group?
For example, if I do high load chin ups, but load load bfr bicep work, or high load bench and low load bfr tricep work.
Or would the effect be doing high load curls + low load bfr curls, high load skull crushers + low load bfr tricep work.
Sorry, I read the article I swear, but just unclear on if the high load work needs to directly focus on the same muscle group as the low load bfr.
I think either would probably be fine.
Great article! I was wondering if you should adjust your significant threshold for the amount of test you did. What are your thoughts about this?
I mostly just report p-values because I know a lot of people like to see p-values, but I personally don’t put much stock in them. And the two findings here that are the most important (significant for upper body pressing, and positive association between frequency and relative out-performance) have low enough p-values that any adjustments wouldn’t affect them enough to matter (0.0056 and 0.0017).
Nice job Greg.
Very interesting to read. One of the things that I have found over the years is that it may not be worth going after the additional strength gains from increased frequency in the long run due to increased injury rates. There may be overall strength gain, through increase in strength in “large muscle groups”, while at the same time overtraining some other muscle groups and/or tendons, leading to injury in the long run. Therefore you have to ask yourself if it is worth that extra few percent per week/whatever, if you are going to loose it all while injured.
>>>Another drawback, similar to the periodization review, is that the “trained” lifters still weren’t super well-trained, so we can’t know how well these results would generalize to people who aren’t beginner or intermediate-level lifters.<<< There is the neuro-muscular component that tends to be improved more with increased frequency in beginner or intermediate-level lifters, that is not necessarily as trainable in advanced lifters?
PS-really like the article on using excel for meta-analysis! (-:
I don’t really think frequency has an independent effect on injury risk. I think it depends on how people use frequency. If you’re sticking with the same volume and splitting it over more sessions, you should accrue less intra-session fatigue, and a lot of injuries occur when motor control starts slipping when you being fatiguing. Thus, I’d anticipate lower injury risk. However, if you “go hard or go home” in every session, I definitely think higher frequencies would increase risk. But in that case, it’s not the fault of the tool (frequency) – it’s the fault of the person wielding it.
As for skill acquisition, I think the absolute difference for high-level lifters would shrink with training experience, but the relative difference may still be the same. High level lifters also have a hard time adding more muscle to their frame, so marginal improvements in technique and efficiency are still playing a role in strength increases, and (I’d assume) it would take more frequent practice to improve a motor skill that’s already close to the point of absolute mastery. So, the difference may not be 2% vs. 1.5% per week – it may be more like 2% vs. 1.5% per year – but I don’t see a reason to think the general difference wouldn’t still be there. I could be totally wrong, though (both of us are basing our argument more on speculation and observations than direct evidence).
Glad you like the excel meta article! That was super clutch for me.
Excellent work Greg!
Just as a side note, your article about everything you need to know yo get bigger and stronger, says frecuency is not that important for gaining strenght, have you change your stance on that? . I am a novice lifter(Only 2 months in the gym) but I’ve read all your content and applied thoroughly, and I am incredibly grateful for your contribution.
“have you change your stance on that?”
Yep! My articles represent my best attempt at providing accurate information based on what I knew when I wrote them, but as I learn more and gain more experience, my views shift. When in doubt, go with what I wrote the most recently.
Thanks again for that article Greg. I’ve been thinking a lot about bench since reading it.
When your clients and yourself bench 4x a week, I’m guessing not all of those are maximal sessions? How often do you (or your clients) RPE 9 or 10 on bench press? I’m guessing no more than once a week? How would a week look like?
Monday 3 sets RPE 8
Wed 3 sets RPE 5
Friday 3 sets RPE 9
Sun 3 sets RPE 6
Generally I’ll use RPE cutoffs (sometimes 7, generally 8, and occasionally 9 if they’re training at 90%+, but that’s pretty uncommon) and have one heavier bench days with three lighter days. Sometimes one heavy “normal” bench day, two lighter days, and one “overload” day, where the additional absolute load (from boards, slingshot, etc.) is offset by lower RPEs.
Hi Greg! As always, thanks a lot for another amazing article.
– do you prescribe a fixed number of sets, or do you prefer RPE stops, i.e. “keep doing sets until you exceed 7 RPE”? I’m not sure if this was what you meant with RPE cutoffs.
– when talking about ‘normal’ and ‘lighter’ days, do you mean in terms of volume, intensity, or both?
– if someone needs to gain size or he’s or she’s more interested in hypertrophy, could the light days be composed of isolation exercises and/or higher reps in general?
I have mixed feeling about the last point, because a set of 10-15 reps or even more at a moderate to high RPE isn’t a ‘light day’ at all! Sure, you could do a set of higher reps at a low RPE, but I don’t know how much it could be useful.
Anecdotally, I recover better from low reps at low RPE; but in any case, the common notion of a light day (at least in the body building circles) as I described it before always struck me as controversial.
RPE stops
Absolute and relative intensity. For example, heavy days may be squats with 80%, and lighter days may be something like paused squat or front squat with 70-75% for that lift’s max. So if you squat 500 and front squat 400, you’d be working with 400 on heavy days, but only 280-300 on lighter days (slightly lower relative load, and much lower absolute load).
Yep (isolations and higher reps)!
For what it’s worth, I just came across this recent paper (perhaps you already cited it?), which is relevant to the post topic:
Eur J Sport Sci. 2018 May 31:1-6. doi: 10.1080/17461391.2018.1476590. [Epub ahead of print]
High-frequency resistance training does not promote greater muscular adaptations compared to low frequencies in young untrained men.
Barcelos C1, Damas F1, Nóbrega SR1, Ugrinowitsch C2, Lixandrão ME2, Marcelino Eder Dos Santos L1, Libardi CA1.
Conclusion: Performing RT5, RT3 and RT2 a week result in similar muscle strength increase and hypertrophy, despite higher TTV for RT5.
I’m not sure if this result would apply to experienced lifters however.
Check the sources. I initially included it, and then realized I shouldn’t have.
Hi Greg – NSCA guidelines as well as the standard mentality towards training would suggest that you should wait at least 48 hours between training sessions for a given muscle group. The fact the leg training doesn’t really benefit from more than 1 day a week suggests that doing sets during a very “unrecovered” state is still equally beneficial (volume-load equated). Similarly, there is certainly a high frequency training approach that would have a lifter training a muscle group 3+ times a week which would also violate the magic 48 hour rule. Is there any validity to this time frame?
Thank you for your thoughts and all your work.
There have been three studies looking at whether it matters if you rest at least 48 hours between sessions, versus training the same muscles back-to-back-to-back days. All three of them found that it’s fine to train the same muscles on consecutive days (no difference in hypertrophy or strength gains).
https://journals.lww.com/nsca-scj/Citation/1985/02000/Research__Changes_in_body_composition,_body_build.4.aspx
EctoMorph Joshua
Now that’s a very interesting find (training 3 days back to back)! I do have to wonder, though, if maybe the effect sizes could’ve been different in any of those studies. I can’t tell as that’s probably only mentioned in the full-text and I don’t have access. Is anyone able to access the full-text of these studies and see if effect sizes varied between control and consecutive workout day groups?
Also, on a general note, thanks for the excellent analysis of all this, Greg.
Effect sizes were virtually identical in two of the studies, and actually slightly larger in favor of training on consecutive days in one of the studies (the Hunter study).
Thanks Greg! This idea of training the same muscles with no rest on consecutive days is kind of blowing my mind. It would seem to suggest that everything we thought we knew about recovery (“you get stronger by *recovering* from lifting weights..”) is wrong! I wonder how this can work.
Nah, recovery is still very important. It just occurs in conjunction with everything else. Just because you train again, that doesn’t mean you aren’t still recovering from the prior session.
Outstanding work Greg
What then is refractory period?
As in, how long does one have to rest for myonuclear accretion to occur?
24 hours is necessary for the activation of satellite cells, the peak of proliferation occurs at 72-96 hours, after this time differentiation occurs for 5-8 days. And still need some time to fusion. I expect 9-11 days.
Dude, you’re making these assertions, but the only study you’ve cited to back them up is a synergist ablation study in mice (i.e. constant overload, with no breaks at all) that says the opposite of what you thought it did. And regardless, even if that timeline is correct, that wouldn’t then mean that you had to rest for it to take place.
Wow. A world record-setting lifter who is happy to crunch numbers intelligently…superb.
Yeah, recovery is crucial and takes longer as one ages, but rest may be over-rated these days. Your conclusions about higher frequency make sense to me. The modern trend after many types of surgery on a joint is more active rehab, more often, sooner.
If you train to win a title fight or major marathon, you probably can’t peak again for a few months. But no doubt you have trained hard, for hours- almost every day- in the months leading up to competition. On “rest day” during the Tour De France, pros do a ‘light ride’ that is probably tougher than 99% of amateur cyclists can manage.
Even a seemingly “simple” athletic move like a power lift requires tremendous skill- I’d guess even more so as weight gets into advanced ranges.
Skill can not be developed absent a large number of repetitions.
Even holding lifting reps equal, greater frequencies per week would predict better skill development, as technique will be better-reinforced into memory. But as you note, greater frequency probably results in more reps in practice.
Surely there is a “sweet spot”. Endurance runners and cyclists must take steps to avoid overtraining. Sprinters can tear a hamstring with one too many training runs. But as soon as the muscles have recovered a day without training is time lost- fast approaching atrophy of both skills and strength.
Jimi Hendrix was an “overnight sensation” at age 23. According to what I’ve read, by then he probably had been playing the guitar 6-12 hours a day, just about EVERY DAY, for the preceding 6 years…
Are there any downsides to working out full body 3 days a week for long sessions?
I have a lot of time on certain days and none on others, so i workout 3 days a week full body, but due to this, my workouts usually end up being 4-5 hours long. Are there any disadvantages to training this way for a late intermediate trainee?
Nah, that’s fine. Though I question the need to have 4-5 hour workouts, unless you’re just resting a SUPER long time between sets.
Legs don’t improve as much because they’re already being used to lift 1 to 3 hundred pounds every day just with walking around while arms can be practically dormant on off days.
And my not very scientific theory about high freq is that you’re getting your body used to having to send nutrients to your muscles everyday. So you do this 5 days in a row and your body (as if it were sentient which it isn’t) decides to send the same amount of nutrients on the 6th day when you rested. On the 2nd rest day it probably realizes its mistake and doesn’t. So then you reprime your system with 5 days of training and again trick your body on the 6th day, causing a day of growth. Etc.
Endurance runners already do something like this. Looks like strength training is catching up.