Calves, abs, and forearms training frequency

[DaCypher]

This may have been covered before, but I thought I'd bring it up again because I feel its somewhat misunderstood.

Do you guys train your calves, abs, and/or forearms more often than any other body part? For some reason these particular body parts seem to get reputations for being able to train more often without a risk of overtraining them as often as other muscle groups. What do you guys think?

 

[mattcanning99]

well, this really depends on you. many say you can't overtrain abs, calves and forearms, but this is a myth. they are muscles like any other, and can be overtrained. maybe its possible to train them more often than other groups, but again, this depends on you. one explanation which makes sense, is that calves, abs, and forearms are all smaller body parts, and because of that, they recover faster, and therefore have been put in this category of inability to overtrain. back for example, most people can agree takes a lot longer to recover from than biceps. so its all relative to size, in a sense, hence the rep.

matt

 

[Razarsharp]

Here's what you do, train abs light and with variety every other to every third day. If you throw in weights of any kind, give them at least 3 days in between. Calves to grow and to shape need serious weight and 10 or more reps per set. I would suggest training calves every four days for best results. This changes if you use a stepper or a treadmill on incline because you are inadvertently training them. If this happens work calves with at least one day of rest after this type of cardio session or prexhaust them prior to this type of cardio. As for forearms, train them with a rest day coming up...because forearms are involved in everything you do from eating, to showering, to every bodypart us train excluding legs...but even then you use them to move the weights around. I suggest a killer forearm workout with at leat a single rest day coming up and no more often than once every 7-8 days. You can overtrain all these muscles very easily as you can also undertrain. Best advice - listen to your body and keep track of your improvements, daily!

 

[DaCypher]

Well, my split right now looks like this:

Monday:
Legs, shoulders, calves

Wednesday:
Chest, triceps, abs

Friday:
Back, biceps, forearms

I was thinking of maybe training calves, abs, and forearms on all three days, but that seems a bit much. Maybe on Monday and Friday train on all three, or some other combination?

 

[diamonddiceclay]

abs never, calves 3 times a week and fores once

 

[110%]

i personally reccoment doing forearms twice a week, calves three times, and abs two times. though i strongly believe supersetting two abs exercises together then finishing off with one, total of three, works great for the abs. i would reccomend trying that, and make sure to keep variety in your abs training.

 

[mattcanning99]

Legs, shoulders, calves

Wednesday:
Chest, triceps, abs

Friday:
Back, biceps, forearms

id say, start by doing each of the three 2 days a week. if they are all responding well, up it to three. abs i hear about people who train them 3 - 4 days a week. arnold trained them everyday, and said he would hit them on different angles. so do 2 sessions a week next week, if that goes down ok, up the workouts to an additional day per week. if you are still doing good then and making good results, keep doing it. follow the instinctive training principle in situations when you are not sure.

matt

 

[DaCypher]

Good info guys, thanks. I've been playing around with my calves/abs/forearms split for a while now, I guess I never give it much time in one setup to really decide if I'm getting decent results or not.