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What is the Ideal Training Frequency?

What is the Ideal Training Frequency? Is a question that is confusing to many and open-ended to all.

The only accurate answer is it depends on how quickly you can recover. No matter what your goals and requirements are, training frequency absolutely has to be determined by your ability to recover from your exercise.

training frequency, personal trainer stockport

Charles Poliquin has stated on his blog he believes people should train at least 4 days per week. He also recommends twice per day training in the right circumstances, so it’s easy to be confused. To make things easier to understand though, he summarises his opinion on training frequency in a single line…

the bottom line in regard to training frequency is that the best frequency is the one that works for you!

Personally, I typically follow a 4 day training week, focussing on an upper/lower split for the most part – I will explain why later in the article. Furthermore, I will tweak my rep ranges depending on my goals and how I feel – with 10 years of weight training experience I know intuitively how I am feeling within a few minutes of my warm up.

Some days you can train harder than others and the wise trainee will listen to that.

Different people and training approaches will require varying lengths of recovery. Essentially recovery time will depend on…

  • Age – younger trainees tend to recover from exercise more quickly.
  • Nutrition – higher protein intake and good quality foods reduce recovery time.
  • Recovery strategy – active recovery reduces recovery time.
  • Training difficulty – the harder you train, the more recovery time you will need.

Training frequency is somewhat determined by work load.

There are different parameters of training difficulty…

Strength training (especially at an advanced level) has a huge neuromuscular demand. Weight training generally requires lifting of large loads and many different movement patterns that take a while to recover from. A hatha yoga class for example, less so.

In a nutshell, the harder or longer you train, the more recovery time you will require. You can’t lift personal record weights on all exercises or run marathons on successive days. It is during recovery that we strengthen and improve.

There is also the training load to consider when it comes to training frequency.

Split routines dictate that you have to train at least as often as your split requires. If you followed the following split…

  • Chest and triceps
  • Back and biceps
  • Shoulders and arms
  • Legs and Abs

Obviously you would have to train at least 4 sessions per week (and more if you add conditioning work to your programme), but there is a limit to the load in typical split routines in my experience, and here is why…

When you focus all of your efforts on a particular muscle group, fatigue is localised, meaning each subsequent exercise is with a lighter and lighter weight. Using chest as an example, if you choose say, dumbbell bench press as your first exercise it will fatigue your target muscles, leaving less strength and endurance left for the following exercises, reducing the overall training load.

Compare this to a full body or upper/lower split where exercises are spread across different body parts, reducing localised fatigue and allowing for a higher training load to be maintained for a longer period. This makes the workout harder overall, but, as the localised muscular trauma is lower some people will recover quicker, allowing them to train more frequently.

Higher training loads usually mean lower training training frequency.

A high frequency of training is detrimental if the nature of the exercise is high intensity. As a rule, when the intensity goes up, the training load goes down, as I will explain….

My old housemate was a CrossFit addict and used to train 3 days on, 1 day off throughout the year. My hunch was it was just far too much. He didn’t ever seem to hit PR’s and none of his performance parameters ever improved. The workouts were short in duration but very high in intensity – the met con workouts such as ‘Filty Fifty’ place huge demands on the CNS and muscular systems and 1 rest day per week just wasn’t enough recovery – especially on reduced calories when trying to reduce body fat.

In my opinion, his training frequency was far too high. He would drag himself to train regardless of how he felt – part of the CrossFit ‘elite’ mindset.

training frequency, personal trainer stockport

I think if you can manage your recovery and dictate your training load and intensity by how your are feeling, a higher frequency of training is beneficial. As I mentioned I am presently working on a 4 day split with a high intensity and load and have felt the benefits – increased strength, muscle mass and conditioning.

So to answer the what is the ideal training frequency question properly, we have to base the answer on the following guidelines…

  • Training intensity – higher intensity = reduced frequency
  • Training load – higher load = reduced frequency
  • Recovery – better recovery = increased frequency

The final determinant as to how hard you can train is arguably the most important – how you are feeling on the day. If you are feeling good, train hard. If you aren’t feeling quite so good, back off a bit. Reduce intensity, load or maybe focus on prehabilitation or flexibility and mobility work.

Play around with your programme – tweak it depending on how you are feeling, your strength and energy levels and how well rested you are. You may find increasing or reducing your training frequency will help you achieve the results you want.

For a few of the workouts I have followed this year, check out these two articles….

Published by

HoylesFitness

Owner of www.hoylesfitness.com. Personal Trainer, Father and fitness copy writer. Working hard making the world fitter and healthier!

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