Training Frequency - more is better?

S

skunker

New Member
Hey folks,
I'm self-employed, so I can literally workout anytime/anyday of the week, as many times as I want. Therefore, I was wondering how many times I should work out since I have lots of time available. I just browsed the HST FAQ and saw this:

"Training once every 7 days will still allow you to grow, it just takes longer for the gains to accumulate. Training more frequently is more efficient if your goal is just to get bigger"

Okay, I don't want to be a workout-aholic, but I do want to gain results as fast as possible. I've been lifting for at least 5 years off and on, and I'm 26 years old. Now, is it really true that the more you volume you lift a week + frequency = big gains fast?

Whatever happened to the belief of overtraining? I keep hearing that you should rest more, etc.

I saw a poll here cently where most of you guys are lifting like 6x a week. I don't think I can find the motivation to keep doing that every week.

thoughts?
 
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(skunker @ Sep. 14 2006,11:47)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I don't think I can find the motivation to keep doing that every week.</div>
If you already have decided you won't be able to do something, you are undoubtedly right. Why plan to fail? It doesn't matter what is better. What matters is what your can do. Pick a workout frequency that will motivate you.
 
<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I saw a poll here cently where most of you guys are lifting like 6x a week.</div>
What does a good/healthy 6x a week program look like?
 
The thing is Skunker, it is a case of diminishing returns. After all, there's only so much your body can grow in a week however perfect your training and calorie consumption is. The more you work out the harder it will be to keep fatigue at bay.

What you will find is that as w/o frequency increases, volume per workout will have to drop or you will find your progress grinds to a halt. If you trained full-body, twice a day, six times a week, you would almost inevitably use more volume than if you did just three times a week. This might be great for some folks but not for others.

If you wanted to gain mass on such a regime you would have to eat even more than the usual additional 500 calories over maintenance each day, perhaps 1000 extra cals a day. This starts to get hard to do very quickly as you have to keep increasing calories as you gain weight.

It would seem that as good gains can be had from three, full-body, HST style w/os a week that would be the best place to start - at least for a few cycles anyway. Then you can start to mess with variables like frequency and volume. You need to know your calorific requirements too so that you can ensure you eat enough to maximise your growth potential but not so much that you pile on fat.

As a final thought, as you are completely flexible with your time, you could try training full-body, every other day which would push your frequency up a bit. If it starts to get too much just drop back to 3 x week or lower the volume a bit.
 
There's been a lot of talk lately about training every 36 hours. According to Bryan and the research, protein synethis returns to normal levels about 36 hours after training, so this is the ideal time to spark the anabolic process again. However, your CNS takes longer to recover so you have to keep volume low and calories high (above maintainance at all times) to keep fatigue and overtraining at bay. As Bryan says numerous times the concept of overtraining is largely due to the CNS, not the muscles or tendons.

So ideally a 36 hour program would be AM Mon, PM Tues, Wed rest, AM Thurs, Pm Fri, etc. etc.

Give it a try and let us know how it goes. Remember to eat!
 
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