IMO the average gym goer or BBer is of no chance of overtraining as their intensity and frequency just isnt there to overtrain
Also I've not managed to overtrain yet, despite my best efforts. I really wouldn't worry about it unless your doing shit loads of drop sets etc
I agree with that statement, but am interested in what people think, hence the discussion.
What I'm really after is the 'why' you think like this or that, what makes you have this ideology?
I have a program that I do and pretty much will stay the same but may change frequency/volume and or intensity to suit. The exercises won't change, just how I use them. This is why I am personally very interested in the 'why' people think and do their training a certain way.
In that case I like higher frequency. 2-3 times per week. For the reason I seem to get stronger quicker that way plus I like doing my favorite lifts more often than once a week.
The biggest difference is that I don't really think of what I can't do any more but what I can
This is a pattern I see many of the more experienced lifters talk about. Did you start this way Bazz, or end up training like that because the results were speaking for themselves?
I currently lift with everything, once every 6 days. I found that I was simply craving to work out a body part after around 5 days, so thought I would reduce my rest time a little from the conventional once every 7 days . I was going to shorten it to once every 5 days, but i'll have to see how I go with this for a few months. I love it TBH.
I'll work Chest, Back, have a day off. Delts/Arms, Legs, have a day off. I love having those days off now, more than anything, so I think it will take piss poor results for me to change out of this split. If I had more time during each workout to spend in the gym, I would probably work out Upper, day off, lower, day off, upper, day off, ...
In my opinion (from how I started, and from watching others) a basic split involving full body exercises is a great option to get you started. Once you've done that, for a bodybuilding focus, you'll need to split up muscle groups and go to the basic once a week split until you allow your body and mind to learn these smaller 'assistance'/isolation exercises. Slowly increase the frequency and regroup components until you're either meeting the limits of your recovery or spending too much time in the gym for each session.
But, this obviously varies from person to person. I just think that if you had to make a recommendation to a person sight unseen, no information provided, that'd be the best, all encompassing suggestion.
There's obviously no absolutes here. The way I understand it, noobs do well at a relatively high frequency for bbing purposes because their tolerance for both volume and intensity is fairly low, while their ability to recover and progress is quite high, so only doing a couple sets of 1-2 exercises per bodypart several times per week is quite sufficient.
As a person progresses, my understanding is that the workload required to optimally stimulate growth increases, and so just doing 1-5 sets per body part at a moderate intensity no longer cuts it. More volume and/or intensity is needed to continue seeing results. This results in more time being spent on each body part and eventually on each muscle group. I'm not convinced that training a body part only once per week is biologically optimal for anyone, however when it takes you an hour hammering away at a muscle to do enough to stimulate further growth, it becomes impractical to train the same muscle groups as frequently as what could have be done before. I don't think it's a (muscular) recovery thing so much as it's an "I don't want to spend 8 hours a day in the gym" thing.
Obviously I don't have the personal experience to back that up, but then again, even if I did, results vary from person to person, and what might be awesome for me at that level could very well be failtastic for someone else at that same level, and vice versa.
I don't train as a bber, but my program over the last 5 weeks has basically been squatting 4 days a week (back squat on Mon/Fri, F.Sq on Wed/Sat), with volume on Mon and Wed and hitting a new PR on Fri and Sat. I follow up back squats with power cleans and high pulls, and front squats with power shrugs and goodmornings. Then on Mon/Wed/Fri I do (M) BP 1x1 then back off for volume, (W) Incline DBBP (the only exercise I do in much of a bbing fashion), dips and rows, (F) BP 1x3 with Mon's single. I also do pull ups between sets of other exercises on M/F. For squats and BP, even my volume work is still fairly low volume, just an extra 8-10 reps.I think your right mate, it's not one size fits all is it. So how are you training now and why? (In terms of frequency. volume. intensity) Is it based on what you have learned so far or the advice you have been given?
I think I have come to a similar conclusion to you, but like you I have some but not allot of personal experience either.
I don't want to be hooked on training habits that interfere with study when I go to uni next semester, work when I become employable, or family life down the line when I have a wife and children to take into consideration).
Just curious as to why you think you need to slowely bring it down to once every 5 days
Higher frequency will build better neural pathways which means faster strength gains. Size wise has been covered by others already. Changes in volume and intensity due to higher frequency have also been discussed well.
Regardless of whether you're training for strength or hypertrophy, most lifters will agree that increased frequency (to a practical limit) is of a pretty good advantage. So work with the highest frequency you can handle for your goals and intensity
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?