Content
- 1 What is the optimal training frequency
- 2 How to determine the optimal training frequency for yourself
- 3 Optimal training frequency for weight loss
- 4 Optimal training frequency for gaining weight
- 5 Exercising too often
- 6 Exercising too infrequently
Video: how many times a week should you train?
Video: is it possible to train every day?
Such a parameter as the frequency of visiting the hall is of exceptional importance. Its correct definition allows you to achieve maximum hypertrophy, avoid catabolism, and prevent overtraining of all body systems. And too wide use of the body's adaptive capabilities usually leads to the opposite of the desired effect. Most people get extremely negative results, systematically exceeding the threshold of the body's adaptive capabilities.
What is the optimal training frequency?
In theory, the optimal training frequency is defined as the placement of classes at the so-called peak of supercompensation. Then the training session can provide the necessary level of “good” stress and will contribute to the development of the necessary physical qualities. The only problem is that supercompensation of various systems (muscular, cardiovascular, nervous) is a different point in time, and the optimal frequency must be determined so as to wait for the restoration of each of the systems to the required extent.
The average supercompensation values for strength training are:
- strength mode, 1-5 reps. Muscles recover from 12 to 36 hours, if the time under load exceeds 15 seconds - up to 76 hours or more. The higher the level of the athlete, the more time should pass between workouts. Beginners can do strength training after one full day. The central nervous system recovers in about 24 hours for an average-level athlete and longer for a more experienced athlete; the hormonal system can recover up to 5 days, especially if cortisol is elevated due to stress;
- “hypertrophy” mode, time under load from 20 to 40 seconds. Muscles recover from 36 to 72 hours, sometimes sources indicate larger numbers. Nervous system - about a day; opinions differ regarding the hormonal system. Most sources indicate that it is better not to train the same muscle group for hypertrophy more than 2 times a week, since the hormonal system cannot recover faster;
Discussion
First of all, I would like to start by saying that I feel much better when analyzing strength data than hypertrophy data. The strength measures are usually nice and clean, and the changes are usually pretty obvious. For 1-time max tests or torque measurements, there is no significant measurement error, and the strength gains are usually large enough that you can be confident that you are seeing real changes. Additionally, poor adherence to pretest guidelines will generally not be a very poor strength test. It doesn't matter if someone accidentally drank caffeine before testing or forgot to report to the fasting lab station (you're trying to control for those things, of course, but sometimes people lie; but when measuring strength, things like that just don't make much of a difference).
With hypertrophy, on the other hand, the changes tend to be much less pronounced (for example, weekly strength gains in my previous analysis were about 4 times greater than weekly hypertrophy in this analysis, although both analyzes used basically the same set research), and sometimes do not even exceed the measurement error of the device you are using for testing. Poor adherence to pretesting guidelines can also make a huge difference, especially for indirect measures of hypertrophy (there's a great article by James Krieger on how to manipulate DEXA results). Also worth noting are the hardware issues; if you have a good ultrasound machine that shows you really clear boundaries of the fascia, measuring the thickness of the muscles - then everything is simple. If you have an older ultrasound machine, there is a reasonable amount of guesswork involved.
I say all this just to point out that I have a little less confidence in these results than I do in the strength studies, simply because I have a little less confidence in the hypertrophy data in general. Collecting good force data is fairly simple; collecting good hypertrophy data requires more trust in your participants and your equipment when you're already trying to find smaller absolute changes or differences.
In broad strokes, higher training frequencies seem to have a greater effect for untrained athletes than for trained ones and for low training volumes than for high ones, and when you assess hypertrophy using indirect measures (i.e. lean body mass), than direct measurements (ie muscle thickness). Most of the differences were still significant in favor of higher frequencies, but the relative advantage of higher frequencies seems smaller if you are an experienced athlete (32% vs. 47% for untrained), if you have high training volumes (27% vs. 77% for light training sessions). volume), and if you're more interested in building specific muscles than just gaining muscle mass (17% for direct measurements, vs. 49% for indirect measurements).
Moving from left to right, the lightest color indicates a minor effect size, the next lightest indicates a small effect size, then medium, and then large at the far right.
So the question becomes: why might higher frequencies be better for muscle growth?
I think the most obvious explanation would be that higher frequencies allow muscle protein synthesis (MPS) to be stimulated more times during the week. Unfortunately, most of our MPS data comes from studies looking at mixed MPS, whereas myofibrillar MPS is what we really care about. There is also a dose-response relationship between training volume per session and MPS per session (i.e., muscle protein synthesis is not just an on/off switch; if you increase volume during a session, MPS will rise and rise longer after that session) , so it is not clear that training a muscle more often with less volume per session actually causes more total MPS over the course of an entire week. Now, if these dose-response relationships were truly fleshed out, we could use this information for some theory development. For example, if we found a plateau in MPS per session after 5 sets for a given muscle, we could say with some degree of confidence that doing 5 sets four times a week would be better than 10 sets twice a week. However, we don't have that level of detail yet.
A second potential explanation could simply be higher volumes with higher frequencies. Volume during work sets was equalized in all of these studies, but higher frequency groups would complete more complete warm-up sets during the program. While warm-up sets certainly won't impact hypertrophy the same way as working sets, they still induce some level of training stress.
A third potential explanation could simply be the effort and energy that can be expressed in each set. If you know you need to do multiple sets of the same exercise, or if you need to do multiple sets in one workout, it's natural to wait a little bit first so you still have some energy left at the end of the session, or start to relax a little closer to at the end of the session when you start to feel tired (I'm sure this doesn't apply to you individually because I'm sure you're giving it your all, but that's a natural human tendency). Of course, having research assistants present to nudge subjects helps curb these tendencies, but I doubt it completely reduced the difference in given effort. In one of the studies included in this analysis, internal training load per session was ~35% lower in the higher frequency group, and total volume load ended up being 16% higher; another study had very similar results. Another study also found lower ratings of perceived exertion (using an effort-based scale rather than a reserve-repetition-based scale) in the higher frequency group. So we know that subjects found each session easier, on average, which sometimes resulted in a larger workload, so I think the higher set load likely played an important role.
Since my article on power, two questions have come up repeatedly that are worth addressing here:
1) Is it possible to train the same muscle on days when it still hurts?
2) Doesn't higher training frequencies increase the risk of injury?
Most studies examining the course of post-training recovery find that it can take 2-4 days for muscles to fully recover from a challenging workout (depending on training condition, volume, degree of eccentric stress, etc.). Most people believe that they should wait until the muscle has fully recovered before exercising it again. However, there is no conclusive evidence (that I am aware of) to support this assumption. In fact, there are three studies comparing sequential and non-sequential training (that is, training the same muscles on back-after-back days, and resting at least 48 hours between workouts for the same muscle), and none of the three found no negative effects for consistent training. All three of these studies used untrained athletes. Also, keep in mind that at higher frequencies, the volume of each session per muscle group needs to be lower, making training the same muscles back after back much more doable.
In terms of injury risk, I think there is a scientifically and practically sound answer.
A recent study of powerlifters found fairly weak associations between training frequency and injury risk (in some analyzes there was a positive association, and in some analyses, a negative association). Additionally, most acute injuries tend to occur when fatigue sets in and focus becomes dull, so I suspect that higher frequencies may reduce the risk of acute injuries by reducing the volume of exercise per session. I think the effect of frequency on chronic injury risk will be largely determined by technical skill. I don't think that with good technique, higher training frequencies will increase the risk of chronic injury. However, with poor technique, it wouldn't surprise me if higher frequencies increase the risk of chronic injury, often putting your tendons and/or ligaments under excessive stress. This is the scientific answer.
Practical answer: A lot depends on how you approach training mentally. If you like to go all out on every set and maintain a high level of volume in every session for every muscle group, thus pushing yourself to the point of exhaustion by the end of the workout, then high frequencies are probably a bad idea. If you take a more relaxed approach to training (and with good technique), you will probably be comfortable with higher frequencies.
As a final note before we wrap things up, I think the volume-consensus literature (reviewed in this article) may be underestimating the effect of frequency on hypertrophy. We know that volume appears to be the primary metric in hypertrophy, and generally increasing frequency allows for increased volume. Doing 20 sets of squats in one session will baffle most people, but doing 5 sets of squats four times a week is generally challenging but doable. I think higher frequencies may increase the risk associated with increased volume. If you only train legs once a week and you go all out in one session, at least you have a week to recover before training legs again; most people can recover from anything in a week. However, if you train legs four times a week and the volume is too high, you'll be putting yourself deeper and deeper into a hole, increasing your risk of exhaustion or overtraining. So increasing the frequency can be beneficial, but you have to be smart about it. Effective monitoring of recovery is likely to become more important with higher training frequencies.
How to determine the optimal training frequency for yourself
It is usually recommended to monitor the state of the body according to the following parameters:
- quality of sleep. If sleep disturbances occur after training, you are working out too much and you should reduce the frequency of going to the gym;
- appetite. A decrease in appetite under high loads is a sure sign of overtraining; it is also better to reduce the frequency;
- state of strength indicators. If you exercise taking into account the figures given above, but your strength indicators do not increase, but fall, the frequency must be reduced. At least during the first year of training, strength should increase linearly;
- progress in achieving goals. Obviously, if you do not see hypertrophy, or are not losing weight, there is something wrong with your training, including the frequency or quantity
What did the researchers do?
A dozen studies have examined the effects of more frequent or infrequent training on muscle growth.
Most of them were inconclusive, finding no differences between different groups of subjects.
So, these scientists decided to take a step back, look at all the data on the topic, and try to figure out what the body of evidence points to.
This type of research is known as meta-analysis because it looks at a problem from a “meta,” or higher-level, perspective.
The main advantage of meta-analysis is that pooling the results of many studies makes it possible to detect trends that may not have emerged in smaller studies with a small number of subjects.
In this meta-analysis, the researchers narrowed down the studies to those that:
- They included training programs that directly compared different weekly training frequencies without changing too many variables like volume, intensity, and exercise selection.
- Conducted on healthy people instead of laboratory animals.
- Lasted at least 4 weeks to give subjects time to build sufficient muscle tissue.
- Muscle growth was measured in several ways to obtain more accurate data.
- We used basic exercises, thanks to which the training programs duplicated the classes in the gym.
After going through all the studies, the scientists found 10 that met these criteria. In each case, both groups of subjects performed the same exercises with the same training volume, number of repetitions, and rest period between repetitions.
The only difference was that some people's programs spread this training volume over more days per week, while others did it over fewer days.
Then, scientists (including our Scientific Advisory Board member and statistical genius James Krieger) ran these studies through various equations to ensure the accuracy of the results.
Optimal training frequency for weight loss
Those losing weight are advised to differentiate between cardio and strength training. You should not perform excessive strength training to avoid catabolism. Without pharmacological support, 2-3 workouts per week are considered optimal, containing basic exercises in a strength (not hypertrophy) mode to preserve muscles. And cardio training in a regular or interval style almost every day. It is also possible to use circuit training in machines or with free weights; there can be at least 2 such sessions per week.
Those losing weight can go to the gym more often, but should not do an excessive amount of strength work.
Exercising too often
Exercising too frequently while gaining weight can result in a lack of progress due to too much stress on the hormonal system. Training plans designed for athletes with pharmacological support are especially dangerous in this sense if they are used by natural training athletes. You should differentiate between these indicators, and avoid too frequent and voluminous training to prevent catabolism.
Exercising too frequently in weight loss plans is usually fraught with exhaustion of the nervous system and changes in appetite. In most cases, this leads to a breakdown in dieting and is therefore counterproductive. You should carefully approach the amount of training, and reduce it as your body condition changes and your caloric intake decreases.
How to determine the correct frequency of exercise for muscle growth?
Many beginning bodybuilders today study a large amount of information that can easily be found on the Internet.
After that, they are sure that they already know all the secrets of bodybuilding. However, they quickly realize that they were wrong, because progress is not visible. To make everything clearer to you, we will tell you about one incident that happened in real life. One bodybuilder stopped progressing and discussed his problem with his coach. As a result, they decided to take a break from classes, which lasted three weeks.
The guy took bodybuilding seriously and could not stop training for such a long period of time. First of all, it is quite difficult from a psychological point of view. When you see yourself progressing, it's hard to force yourself to do nothing for three weeks. Sometimes a person may take advice to stop exercising as a defeat.
However, sometimes the body needs to be given more time to recover and you should keep this in mind. During a long pause, you can rethink your approach to building the training process and understand how often to do training. Don’t think that by relaxing you will waste time. The body uses it for its intended purpose and will be able to fully recover.
However, let's return to the case we are considering. The coach was able to convince his ward and the builder rested for three weeks. Two months after resuming classes, he told the coach about his successes, which turned out to be simply shocking.
The guy was able to increase his strength in a short time and during the first lesson he set personal records in several movements. If previously he used the now most popular three-time training regimen, then after the break he trains once every nine days. He uses a two-day split, dividing his body into upper and lower parts. As we expected, the forced pause did him good.
I would also like to say a few words about how often to do workouts to lose weight. This is due to the fact that weight gain has slightly different laws compared to fat burning. If your goal is only to fight fat, then classes should be carried out daily, but at the same time it is necessary to correctly structure the training process so as not to overtrain. At the same time, it makes sense to use anti-catabolics so as not to lose muscle mass. During the drying period, it is recommended to conduct no more than two strength training sessions during the week, and devote the rest of the time to cardio sessions.
