Working your muscle twice a week may be the way to go....

[Savage]

I've been doing a westside style workout for abouta year now and the results were amazing for me. Hitting the same muscle groups twice a week.

I think this may also be beneficial if trying to gain a some lean body mass.

All the old school guys used to hit the groups three times a week and some lifters hit them 6 times a week. Maybe allthis one muscle per day per week stuff is not as good as it seems.

What do you think?

 

[JollyRogers]

Whatever works for you, as I put it, everyone would laugh if they knew my workout schedule, heh...its not even a schedule at all, When I workout, I always do something different in terms of what exercises I do, same with sets, reps, rest time, weight.

I continually change my workouts, times and rest days.. always, I have no, lets say... hardwired routine, of working out, whatever I feel I should work on, and Im fresh enough, I hit it again, Im a symmetry freak.. lol

You say hitting them twice a week is better then one, I would have to say yes, but then again, someone else could say, no. everyone’s different in how there body responds I guess, so there’s no right answer, although some would have you believe otherwise.


If it works it works, but nothing works forever !

 

[sparky_d2]

Whatever works for you, as I put it, everyone would laugh if they knew my workout schedule, heh...its not even a schedule at all, When I workout, I always do something different in terms of what exercises I do, same with sets, reps, rest time, weight.

I continually change my workouts, times and rest days.. always, I have no, lets say... hardwired routine, of working out, whatever I feel I should work on, and Im fresh enough, I hit it again, Im a symmetry freak.. lol

You say hitting them twice a week is better then one, I would have to say yes, but then again, someone else could say, no. everyone’s different in how there body responds I guess, so there’s no right answer, although some would have you believe otherwise.


If it works it works, but nothing works forever !

I am exactly the same way. To anyone wondering what they should, my best advice from experience is to do what works for YOU. When I first started training, I worried more about how I was SUPPOSED to train than actually hitting the gym. Everyone is different. I just take everyones advice into consideration, and do what works for me. Once, twice a week... dont stress about it, just get your ass in the gym and work hard, that's the key!

 

[T-Rage]

All this talk begs the ultimate question...

Would you be better off working out a muscle really really hard once a week or maybe not hitting it as hard twice a week?

Then you need to bring the risk of injury into the picture. Even if hitting it really really hard once a week is slightly better than the easier twice a week it would create a greater risk of injury.

That being said for all those who train high intensity...Yes great gains are made but don't forget to deduct for time lost in the gym due to injury. Maybe the less intense lifter may end up with similar gains because he/she stayed injury free and remained consistent.

There are a ton of trade offs and I guess it is all about what works for each person.

Lean mass vs. overall mass
strength vs. size
risk of injury
etc.

 

[casualbb]

I can't resist weighing in here...

Traditionally, bodybuilding looked at the body as one isolated system. When you worked out really intensely, your body needed to "recover." This involved the building of muscle and the recovering of strength. When you had recovered your strength, your muscle was also recovered and you could hit it again.

Science does not support this standpoint. There really are two separate systems that each bear consideration.

1) The muscular system. The muscle cells themselves don't really give a crap about "intensity" or failure training. All they know is tension. "There was X amount of weight being supported by this muscle cell." And if that weight is greater than what the cell's used to, it'll grow.

Muscle cells take 36-48 hours to recover from a bout of exercise-induced damage (this is how growth occurs). This number is not at all dependent on intensity; it is a fixed timeframe.

2) The neural system. Here's where intensity and failure training start to matter. One could look at the neural system as a safeguard against lifting too much weight. Motor units do "fatigue," and subsequently are not able to contract. Training to failure has specific negative effects on the nervous system, and is the true source of overtraining.

CNS recovery can take anywhere from 0-10+ days depending on how much you pushed it in terms of volume and failure training. Note: this recovery occurs independently of muscular recovery.

So when one's goal is to gain muscle, working to failure and waiting for the CNS to recover each time one trains is really counterproductive, as the muscle cells themselves will be done growing after two days, waiting idle for the nervous system to catch up. Strength training is a different thing entirely because it usually is looking to train the nervous system to be more efficient, so one would want to wait for full CNS recovery if strength training. Managing volume also remains important.

So basically, twice a week has you growing twice as fast as once a week, and thrice a week three times as fast. The way DC looks at it is simplified, but accurate up to a frequency of about 4 times/week.

-casualbb

 

[Lee]

interesting casual. i used to train muscle groups 2-3 times a week back when i was a newbie. i saw gains at first, but then i got stale, and started getting weaker. then i did a shitload of research, and went on a 4 day split and my gains started commin back. im currently on a 3 day split, but i dont like it very much, im not seein many gains in terms of strength.

 

[Zander1983]

I like about 3-4 days in between workouts for the same muscle groups, depending on a lot of factors though.

 

[Lee]

i feel taht 3 to 4 days is plenty for me.

 

[coolcolj]

I hit most muscle groups twice a week, some 4 times a week - PRs and musclegrowth a plenty

however training has to be periodised, planned and not done to failure

 

[Lee]

4 times a week seems to intense to me, i wouldnt have enough rest time.