Exercise does not directly produce increases in muscular strength and size. If performed intensely enough, the stress of exercise stimulates your body to produce an increase in the strength and size of your muscles as an adaptive response.
For your body to produce the increases in muscular strength and size stimulated by your workouts it needs time, along with adequate protein and calories, and quality sleep.
Even if you exercise intensely and stimulate your muscles to grow, and even if you are eating enough quality protein and calories to support recovery and growth, if you don’t give your body enough time off between workouts you will interfere with the process and prevent it from producing all the strength and size gains you worked for.
The more intensely you train, the stronger the stimulus for growth, but also the more stressful it is on your body, and the more quickly you reach a point of diminishing returns as your workout volume and frequency increase. If you work out too long and/or too frequently, you’ll gain less muscle, not more. If you train too long and/or too frequently for long enough, you will eventually become overtrained and start to become smaller and weaker.
Most people need at least one day off between workouts for recovery, regardless of whether you are training your whole body or splitting it up, and should work out no more than three times per week on non-consecutive days. Some people take longer to recover and will get better results only working out twice a week or less frequently (or alternating between upper and lower body workouts, so they’re only directly working individual muscle groups twice weekly on average).
If you train very intensely you can even get good results training as little as once per week. I know many HIT instructors who only work out and train most of their clients once weekly with good results. I only worked out for about twenty minutes once per week while getting ripped for a bodybuilding competition, just to prove it could be done.
However, if you recover fast enough to train more frequently, and don’t mind a little extra time in the gym each week, training as often as your recovery allows will provide faster muscle gain.
I’ve made good progress training once weekly in the past, but I recover fast enough (when I am eating and sleeping well) to train each muscle group twice weekly, so now that I’m working on getting back in contest condition I’m doing exactly that.
This isn’t a blanket recommendation, though. Like most things about exercise, response varies between individuals due to genetics and other factors, and there is no single frequency that is best for everyone. There is a middle ground that will be effective for most people, and makes a good starting point, but what is optimal for each individual varies.
You have to figure it out for yourself by keeping accurate records of your workouts and using them to evaluate your progress, adjust variables, and repeat until you find the frequency that works best for you (or hire me do it for you).
Every time you work out write down everything you do in detail on your chart or in your workout journal, and periodically measure, record, and compare your body weight, composition, and circumference measurements. Evaluate how your body is responding, adjust your workout, re-evaluate a month or two later, and repeat, until you’ve found your optimal frequency.
If you are not gaining strength and size despite training very intensely, and getting adequate rest, the problem may be either too much workout volume, not enough recovery time, or both. Experiment with cutting one of these back at a time, and compare your results.
Keep in mind the longer you have been training the slower you can realistically get bigger and stronger. When you’re starting out you should be able to gain relatively quickly if you are training and eating correctly, but even if you do everything perfectly your progress will slow down more the closer you get to the limits of your genetic potential. You will also recovery and adapt more slowly as you age.
To help you track your workouts and body measurements so you can determine your optimal workout volume and frequency (and save you the time and hassle of putting them all together yourself), I am creating a short ebook on Tracking Progress with several printable workout charts designed for high intensity training, a body data chart for tracking weight, composition, and circumference, a nomogram for estimating body composition from skinfold measurements, and detailed guidelines for all of using them.
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I’m curious why working out on consecutive days would be an issue if you are working DIFFERENT parts of the body on those days. Is that because your entire body gets stressed even if was just, say, leg day? If you followed leg day 24 hours later with chest and back, just to use an example, would that be too frequent?
I guess the sentence I’m asking you about is this one:
“…regardless of whether you are training your whole body or splitting it up…”
Hope my question makes sense! Thanks for the great info, as always.
There is a lot more overlap in muscle involvement between many exercises than most people realize, and even if you are working different muscle groups you are still creating demands on the body as a whole.
I am doing a video on this topic later today in the private Facebook group for HIT List members if you’d like even more details.
What are your thoughts “Active Recovery”?
You shouldn’t be completely inactive between workouts, but you shouldn’t be attempting sub maximal workouts in between. People should engage in some kind of light to moderate physical activity for recreation a few days a week, but more exercise would be a waste of time at best, and often counterproductive.
If you are training very intensely you quickly reach a point of diminishing returns as your volume and frequency increase. Beyond some point, doing more exercise will not improve your results, you’re just wasting time in the gym. Most people already do far more than needed.
Many people rationalize doing this because although they’ve read or heard recovery is important, but they can’t get over their belief that more exercise is better and believe that if they’re not in the gym, they’re not improving. I don’t know, but I also suspect the fitness and bodybuilding media also encourage more frequent training because much of what they publish is based on pleasing their advertisers rather than evidence, and you sell more pre and post workout supplements if people are working out more frequently.
Most people are going to get the best results possible training no more than 20-30 minutes 2-3x/week, and many will get even better results training even more briefly and infrequently, in the case of a few extremely slow-responders as little as 10-15 minutes once every 10-14 days.
How would you measure/assess reasonable strength gains based on how long you’ve been working out? i.e. how do you know if you’re exercise program is working or not over time?
I cover this in detail in several videos in the private Facebook group for HIT List members. Go to the HIT List page to join, then search the group for the following videos:
Realistic expectations of progression and muscular size gains
Genetic potential and realistic expectations of results from exercise
Basics of Exercise and Fat Loss, Realistic Expectations, and Frequently Asked Questions
How Much Should You Increase the Weight for an Exercise After Reaching Your Upper Target Rep Count or TUL?
Thanks so much for your advice. I’m 69 and building (serious) muscle for the first time. After reading your column on workout frequency and duration, I’m going to cut back and see if I can move past the plateau I’m on.
I understand that intensity is more important than volume, but consider this. Let’s say a person does 8 reps to failure for chest, even if he works out three times a week he’ll be doing only 24 reps per week. Even if intensity is high (going to failure, more time under tension etc.), still wouldn’t 24 reps for a muscle group be too little volume?
No.
Effort over time is what matters, not the mechanical work performed.
If you would like a detailed explanation of this there are several videos on it in the private Facebook group for HIT List members.