One of the more popular “advanced” methods is to train each muscle only once a week. That’s a more recent idea, as…
Back in the Golden Age, Arnold and his cohorts usually trained each muscle twice a week. For example…
M-W-F: chest, back, legs
T-Th-S: arms, shoulders, calves
They used lots of sets during this pre-contest phase—and, yes, they were also on “special supplements.”
Even with no drugs involved, training each muscle more frequently has been shown to be more effective than hitting each only once a week.
The latest study to show that is “Effect of Different Training Frequencies on Maximal Strength Performance and Muscle Hypertrophy in Trained Individuals” (Neves, et al. 2022).
The exercise used was single-leg leg press for eight weeks. Subjects performed nine sets for one leg once per week; they trained the other leg with three sets three times a week.
So nine sets total per week for each leg, just different frequencies—once a week vs. divided over three workouts each week….
After eight weeks, quad cross-sectional area was greater in the higher-frequency group—more than double.
Would results have been different with 15 sets? 21 sets? I don’t know. Also…
In the next study they should try twice a week. That’s the frequency that appears to be ideal for most—two days for damage repair and one to two days for supercompensation (growth) to occur.
That’s what I’ve found to be ideal for me. Training each muscle only once a week never worked for myself or my training partner Jonathan—no matter how much we wanted it to. We tried it a number of times. Maybe to make it work, drugs have to be involved. No thanks…
When you’re drug-free, it appears that the muscle repairs, supercompensates, then regresses back to baseline before the next workout with once-a-week hits.
Most people aren’t in the gym to just spin their wheels, they want gains—and also to text people so everyone knows that they’re at the gym.
Latest Release: Get the ideal exercise for each muscle, the best add-on moves for ultimate mass, complete 35-minute workouts, exercise start/finish photos and details on building muscle fast and efficiently in Old Man, Young Muscle.
And you still get The Muscle-On, Belly-Gone “Diet” ebook FREE for a limited time when you add Old Man, Young Muscle to your mass-building library. Go HERE.
Till next time, train hard—and smart—for BIG results.
—Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson
www.X-Rep.com
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