how often do u workout each muscle?

[Power5220]

exclude abs and calves from this unless u do them the same number of times that you do the rest of your muscles

also if you have a workout routine that worked very well for you plz post it for the benifit of others and myself

 

[swordfish151]

I work out each muscle group 1 time per week, but am starting to think that i should hit it twice a week...my overall development seems to be lagging...

 

[n0th1ng]

I hit everything twice a week. I get the best results with low volume high frequency.

 

[tzan]

Direct work once a week......

 

[Madcow2]

This is something I wrote in another post regarding frequency but it's fairly pertinent to this so maybe it's worth pasting in.

Source Thread is Here: http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showthread.php?t=391562

would doing the muscle group twice a wk lead to "overtraining" ..whats up with the myth about doing a body part only once a week...

<snip>

Damn im confused..how would you hit a body part twice but if you only took one day off??

Mon: Chest/back
Tues: Legs/shoulders
Wed: arms
Thurs: chest/back
FRi: Legs/shoulders
Sat: arms
Sun: rest??

do you believe if a body part is lagging you should hit it twice a week?

There's just so much more to it than organizing a split that determines which muscles on which days. Consider squatting 2 sets of 5 reps at 30% of your 1RM (so a 300lbs squatter doing roughly 100lbs). You could do this 5x per week indefinitely. Consider squatting 12 sets of 5 reps at 90% of your 1RM (so a 300max doing 270 now). Most people probably can't handle that more than once per week and even then will likely overtrain in a matter of a few weeks assuming a reasonable amount of other volume on other lifts being trained at reasonable intensity (overtraining has a lot more to do with the CNS and systemic recovery than it does with an individual muscle group).

Granted these are extremes but extreme scenarios serve to illustrate the point that frequency alone doesn't determine anything. When most people think about hitting a bodypart 2x per week what they basically end up doing is taking their existing workout and doing it twice in the same amount of time. So let's just say that they handle their existing workout okay - can they handle double the volume okay? I don't know, that's a damn big increase to pull on someone suddenly. A better way is to split your volume and distribute it using the frequency (so 6 sets of squats with working set weight becomes 3 sets 2x per week). Now a lot of people might find they can increase volume a bit because they become better conditioned with increased frequency and can tolerate more but it would be pretty dumb to start doing 6 sets 2x per week rather than 3 and double it up. Maybe increase by 1 set in each of the 2 workouts or some such other alteration, anything that's less severe than a 100% increase.

So the primary factors at play are volume (the total workload over a period), intensity (a given weight's % of your 1 rep max), and frequency (the allocation of volume). It's also important to realize that the idea that a muscle is trained, recovers fully and is enhanced, and then gets trained again in a similar process workout to workout is a really nice logical way of looking at things but not really how this stuff works. For a novice, it won't make any difference but as one progresses what were once nuances in training theory and not really important can really hurt or stop gains completely (plateau). This is actually the whole reason for periodization in training. You might check out the links under 'Dual Factor Theory - Why This Works' on this page: http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showthread.php?t=375215

 

[JKurz1]

Every 5 days works for me.....chest is lagging, only bp I hit 2x week

 

[view]

something like:

chest 2 x week
back 3 x week
legs 2 x week
delts 1 x week
arms 2-3 x week

low volume, high frequency, and high intensity for me.

 

[ruggermu]

I like every 5 days, I've tried twice a week as well as once a week but every 5 days seems to be the best fit for me.

 

[ScottK345]

I lift each muscle twice a week, but i have not been making any gains, so i have been talking to people in the weight room and they have been saying to lift each muscle only once a week to get the best gains in size and strength. Should I switch to lifting each muscle once a week?

 

[Madcow2]

I lift each muscle twice a week, but i have been making any gains, so i have been talking to people in the weight room and they have been saying to lift each muscle only once a week to get the best gains in size and strength. Should I switch to lifting each muscle once a week?

First, 99% of the people in gyms don't have a clue what they are doing (and don't even think someone knows anything just because they are big and muscular - I have yet to meet a ProBBer who is fit to coach a high school team, their gains are from a ton of drugs magifying a poor training stimulus, really good diet, genetics, and discipline). There is no blanket correct answer because there are far more variables at play than just frequency. If someone tells you to lift X times a week or hit a muscle X times a week without any other criteria they don't have a clue what they are talking about. Read my post further up.