Mar 23, 2019 | Exercise
In the past two articles, we have looked into training volume and intensity. Based on these articles, we now know that most people should train every muscle group with about 10-20 sets per week in a 5-15 rep range. If you get this right, you will experience significant improvements in muscle growth. But there is one last factor that still needs to be discussed: Training Frequency.
How you distribute your volume and intensity throughout the week is relevant for muscle growth. Say someone trains their chest with about 15 sets per week. Should this person do all these 15 sets in one training day? Or should this volume be distributed over multiple days? (e.g. 8 sets on Monday and 7 sets on Thursday).
In this article, I will go into detail on training frequency for building muscle. After reading this article, you will have a better idea of how you should organize your training to support muscle growth. As always, this article is based on the most recent scientific research and logic.
Training Frequency: The Research
Training frequency essentially refers to how you organize your volume and intensity in a training week. Training frequency is a relevant variable because it impacts how much volume you can handle and recover from.
Some people like to train a muscle group so hard once every week, that they cannot train that muscle group again until the next week. Although this may “feel” effective because you are constantly sore, there are more effective ways to organize your training. It’s generally a good idea to divide the volume you have per muscle group over multiple training days. The research supports this.
Example Study 1:
A 2015 study divided 20 trained male volunteers into two groups. Group 1 trained each muscle group 3x per week with a full-body routine, group 2 trained each muscle 1x per week with a body-part split. Training volume (defined as Reps*Sets*Weight) was matched between groups. After 8 weeks, the full-body training group gained more muscle.
Example Study 2:
A 2016 meta-analysis gathered the data from 10 resistance training studies on training frequency and muscle growth. The researchers found that training each muscle 2-3x per week is more effective than training every muscle group 1x per week.
Example Study 3:
A more recent 2018 meta-analysis gathered the data from 22 resistance training studies on training frequency and strength. In this review, it was found that higher training frequencies also generally translate into greater strength gains.
Better Performance & More Practice
The most likely reason that training each muscle group 2-3x per week is more effective is that it allows you to perform better in your training. Just think about it. Let’s say you train your back with 15 sets in a week. If you perform all of these 15 sets in 1 training day, the second half of your workout will be of lower quality.
The first 8-10 sets or so will fatigue your back for the rest of your training session and your performance will drop. This is different if you divide those 15 sets over 2 or 3 training days. You will be able to maintain a high level of performance on most of your sets since you are more recovered. As you probably know, consistently performing better will eventually lead to better training adaptations.
Higher training frequencies also work well because they allow you to practice your main movements more often. Strength is a skill that requires consistent practice. So if you want to improve a certain exercise, it makes sense to practice that exercise more often in a week. As an example, instead of having 6 sets of bench press in 1 big “chest day”, have 3 sets of bench press divided over 2 upper body days. This allows you to get more high-quality “learning” on the movement you want to improve.
Later in this article, I’ll show more practical examples of high-frequency training.
Training Frequency & Protein Synthesis
There is also another interesting theory for why higher training frequencies are more effective for muscle growth. Muscle growth basically occurs when muscle protein synthesis exceeds muscle protein breakdown. This is known as having a “Positive Protein Balance.”
Training affects the protein balance mainly by boosting muscle protein synthesis up. But the duration at which muscle protein synthesis remains elevated after training is pretty short. Research shows the rate of muscle protein synthesis remains elevated for about 48 hours after training. So the muscles you train stop growing after about 2 days. If we consider this, it does not make sense to train a muscle group just 1x per week.
Now, this does not mean that everyone should train each muscle group every 2 days. You need to be able to recover from your training as well. But this only further supports that training your muscle groups more frequently in a week is a good idea if you currently train them only 1x per week.
High-Frequency In Practice
Now that we know higher training frequencies are beneficial for gaining muscle, let’s look into some splits that fit within high-frequency training. There actually are many different ways you can divide your weekly volume to train each muscle group 2-3x per week. Popular splits that fit within our desired frequencies are:
- Upper/Lower splits (2x Upper, 2x Lower)
- Full-Body (3-5 Full-Body Workouts)
- Push/Pull/Legs (Every Workout 2x)
But these are not black-and-white routines. Remember that there is no 1 “best” training split. As long as you train with enough volume, have the right intensity range, and divide your volume per muscle group into 2-3 sessions/week, you will see great results. So if a certain split fits your preferences and allows you to hit your training targets, then go for it.
To give more examples, you can also combine the workout splits I’ve mentioned earlier:
As you can see, there are almost endless possibilities, which is good because it allows flexibility. This is why the routines of my clients look quite different on an individual basis. Based on personal preference and how you progress, you can tweak many things in your training so that it suits you better.
But if you are just looking for a simple routine you can put into practice today, you can check out my 3-day full-body routine. In the YouTube video below, I go over the entire routine and walk you through day 1 of the program.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9MPDSUAXek
Main Takeaways & Final Words:
- Training a muscle group 2-3x per week is more effective than 1x per week for muscle and strength gain.
- When you train a muscle group more frequently, you divide the volume you currently have over more training sessions. Don’t do the same high-volume workouts more frequently.
- Higher training frequencies allow you to manage fatigue more effectively. This results in better training performance.
- There are many different splits that allow you to train each muscle 2-3x per week. As long as you hit your volume, intensity, and frequency goals, you can make your choice based on preference.
That’s all for this article and my 3-part blog series on training programming! Now that you have a deeper understanding of volume, intensity, and frequency, I hope you can be more effective in programming your own workouts.
For Extra Help: My Coaching Service
If you still would like professional guidance on how to plan your training (and nutrition), I suggest you read up on my online coaching service. Through this online coaching service, you outsource the “thinking” work that comes with designing your training and nutrition to me. This allows you to fully focus on executing to achieve your fitness goals.
This is a 1-on-1 service in which I design your training and nutrition based on a thorough assessment. I also keep you accountable via text messages, weekly email consults, and monthly Skype calls. If this is something you are interested in, leave your name and email below and I’ll get back to you with the details.
Oct 19, 2016 | Exercise, Nutrition
During the initial phases of your lifting career, it seems like almost everything works. As long as you train, muscles will grow. Unfortunately, this does not last. As you get more advanced, muscle growth slows down and may even come to a halt.
I learned this the hard way. When I just started off with lifting weights, I used to train 5 times a week. All I did was isolation exercises with a few compound lifts and a drop-set after every single set. I did gain some muscle, but this did not last very long.
In this post, I will be showing you 4 mistakes (which I all made) that could be holding you back as an intermediate or advanced trainee. Preventing these 4 mistakes will help you make better use of your muscular potential. But first, I will be explaining why beginners seem to build muscle faster.
Why ”Newbie-Gains” are real
Muscle growth is not something that just comes along with training hard and eating right. It’s an adaptation to a “stress.” This stress is provided by resistance training. Someone who is new to the gym is not used to the stress resistance training provides. So these muscles will react very well to training stress by adapting to it.
How do muscles adapt, you ask?
Muscles adapt by becoming bigger and stronger than before, so they can handle future stresses more efficiently.
As you get more advanced though, your body has already adapted quite a bit to stresses from resistance training. Therefore it does not see the need to keep increasing muscular strength and size at the same pace.
That’s why multiple studies show that novice lifters (also called ”beginners”) gain muscle quicker than experienced lifters.
For muscles to keep growing, a need for adaptation is critical. This helps explain why overloading your muscle is essential for muscle growth. Constantly challenging your muscles beyond their present capacity causes a need for adaptation.
Without further ado, here are the top 4 reasons why most intermediate and advanced trainees are not gaining muscle.
Reason #1: You are doing too much
Since childhood, we’ve been told that if we want something, we will have to work hard for it. This somewhat does apply to fitness, a certain level of dedication is required to achieve a great physique. But there definitely is a point where “more becomes less.”
Training volume (sets*reps*weight) has a linear relationship with muscle growth. Meaning, the more volume you perform, the more muscle growth occurs.
However, this relationship only exists up to a certain point. If you perform more volume than you can effectively recover from, your fatigue levels increase, which causes your performance to go down and you are in a suboptimal environment to train for progression.
The helps explain why an extensive research review shows that there indeed is such a thing as having too much volume in your training. So, eventually, training too hard results in less muscle growth and strength.
The earlier cited extensive research review shows that performing 30-60 reps per muscle group 2-3x per week is a good starting point for maximizing muscle growth. Based on your progression over time, you can adjust the volume to fit your training needs more.
Reason #2: You are relying on ”fancy training tricks” and isolation exercises
Training for muscle growth is actually quite simple. The new ”revolutionary” ways of training, which supposedly give you pumps like Arnold and abs like Frank Zane, do not magically work better than traditional training methods.
Training tools such as drop-sets and supersets cause great fatigue and a good pump. But if achieving a pump is your main goal when training, you are missing the bigger picture. Achieving overload by progressively challenging your muscles beyond their present capacity should be the main goal of your training plan.
Performing primarily big compound movements and getting stronger will always be the best way to build muscle.
But a stronger muscle isn’t always a bigger one, right?
That’s true, research shows that your body recognizes movement patterns and becomes more efficient if you perform certain movements consistently. This enables you to lift more weight (get stronger) without actually having bigger muscles. In exercise science, this is known as “Neuromuscular Adaptations.”
With that said, once you’ve mastered a movement, any progress you achieve over time is partly also due to you having bigger muscle fibers that can be put to use to produce force. So, eventually, consistent strength progression is a good indicator of positive muscular adaptations occurring.
Reason #3: You are not eating enough
Building muscle and losing fat at the same time, is possible. But to lose fat, you will need to consume fewer calories than your body burns (energy deficit). This energy deficit somewhat inhibits muscle growth, as it decreases protein synthesis rates and increases protein breakdown rates.
The human body constantly synthesizes (protein synthesis) and breaks down (protein breakdown) muscle proteins. If the number of muscle proteins you’ve synthesized exceeds the number of muscle proteins you’ve broken down, you’ve built muscle. So, eating at an energy deficit simply results in less muscle growth.
When you consume slightly more calories than your body needs (like in a bulk), you can optimize muscle growth by facilitating anabolic processes and supporting heavy resistance exercise. Maintaining an energy surplus of 200-300 calories is generally sufficient for optimal growth.
Want to learn more about the proper way of bulking? Read this article.
Reason #4: You are underestimating your potential
Believe it or not, your perception of what is naturally achievable has an effect on your results. Those who think that everyone with a bit of muscle is on steroids are often very skinny.
They have ”accepted” that they will never be able to achieve good muscular development without the use of performance-enhancing drugs. Clearly, this is not the case.
Having an optimistic mindset and truly believing in your body’s abilities goes a long way.
A very interesting (and kinda funny) study by the Manchester Metropolitan University, shows that a different mindset has a great effect on your physical abilities. The volunteers in this study were all powerlifters. The powerlifters received a pill before training, which was presented as a ”fast-acting steroid.” The pill was filled with saccharine, an artificial sweetener.
Basically, they tricked the powerlifters into believing that they were taking steroids. The result? The powerlifters broke their PR’s by an average of 5% in just 1 training session. Considering these were high-level powerlifters, a 5% increase in total weight is quite high. Normally, such an increase in weight would take months of periodized training.
This all just because they truly believed that their body was capable of more. Therefore, don’t underestimate your capabilities, as this directly can influence your actions.
Final words
There you have it, the 4 likely reasons why some of you are not gaining muscle. I hope you enjoyed this article and have gotten plenty of insights. If you have any questions or remarks, don’t hesitate to comment below. I will gladly help you out.
If you are interested in learning more about maximizing your muscular potential, check out my new eBook “The Art & Science of Muscle Growth. This book translates the currently available scientific data regarding muscle growth in “simple English”, so everyone can start implementing an evidence-based approach to training and nutrition.
Sep 8, 2016 | Exercise, Nutrition
Muscle growth doesn’t come quickly to us natural lifters. That’s why you want to cherish every pound of muscle you build. The last thing we want to do is lose a significant amount of muscle during a fat loss phase.
If you approach your fat loss phase incorrectly, this can occur. But as you’ll see in this post, it’s more than possible to preserve muscle well while you are in a fat loss phase.
How Fat Loss Affects Muscle Growth
When your body is in an energy deficit, it will have to tap into its energy reserves. The most obvious reserve to turn to is body fat. This is why your body gains fat when you overfeed it, so it can use it in times of food scarcity.
But body fat isn’t the only energy source available that is used to balance out an energy deficit. For instance, research shows that protein breakdown also increases when you’re in a calorie deficit.
The human body builds (protein synthesis) and breaks down (protein breakdown) muscle proteins every day. If the number of muscle proteins you’ve built exceeds the number of muscle proteins you’ve broken down, you’ve built muscle.
In a calorie deficit, research shows that protein synthesis rates drop and protein breakdown rates increase. This negatively affects the amount of muscle you build and can potentially make you lose muscle if your approach is too aggressive.
There are 3 main factors that can minimize (or maximize if you do it incorrectly) the negative effect an energy deficit has on muscle growth.
- Caloric intake
- Protein intake
- Resistance training
We’ll discuss how you can use these factors to your advantage, one by one.
Caloric Intake
You’re probably thinking that I’m going to tell you to ”maintain a small deficit” or ”keep fat loss very slow”. I’m not, the slower you’re losing fat, the longer it takes to reach your fat loss goal. Why is this not beneficial for muscle growth, you ask?
Well, research shows that the longer you’re underfeeding your body, the more susceptible to muscle loss you become. That’s why you don’t want to drag out your fat loss phase if there is no need to.
That said, severe calorie restriction is also not the answer (unless you’re morbidly obese). Research by the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences shows that muscle and strength loss is significant when non-obese individuals eat way below their caloric requirements.
So how many calories should you eat to maximize muscle preservation while still losing fat rapidly?
A good starting point is found in a scientific review paper, which was designed to provide evidence-based recommendations for natural bodybuilders (people like you, who want to gain more muscle and lose more fat).
They found that losing 0.5-1% of total body weight per week is a good starting point for those who want to improve their body composition. This generally can be achieved by maintaining a calorie deficit of roughly 20-25%. Like in this study, in which athletes lost an average of 1.2 lbs per week by maintaining a deficit of 24%.
Protein Intake
The role of protein during a fat loss phase is very simple: it increases muscle preservation and keeps you full for longer. That’s why it’s highly beneficial to maintain a somewhat high protein intake during your fat loss phase.
But most people take this the wrong way. Because a higher protein intake is beneficial, they think they should stuff themselves with protein every 2-3 hours. This is not necessary.
A 2017 systematic review indicates that consuming as low as 0.7g/lb. (1.6g/kg) of body weight is able to maximize muscle growth. If you want to err on the safe side of things and make use of the satiating effects of protein, you can feel free to consume more protein in a day.
Resistance Training
The human body is quite fascinating. It’s able to survive in extreme circumstances due to its adaptive capabilities and efficiency.
It won’t hold on to muscle tissue that is not used for an extended period of time. It sees this as unnecessary extra weight, which costs energy to preserve. For the same reason, you won’t just build muscle.
You need to give your body a reason to preserve and eventually build muscle. You provide this stimulus simply by using your muscles in training. This helps explain why research by the Washington University shows that weight training increases muscle preservation in calorie-restricted individuals.
To maximize muscle preservation and perhaps even build muscle during your fat loss phase (depending on how close you are to you are to your genetic limit), you need to train for progressive overload.
The training you perform in the gym is considered a stress that forces an adaptive response. Your body adapts to training by building bigger and stronger muscles so that it can deal more efficiently with the provided training stress in the near future. So for consistent muscle growth to occur, you need to constantly challenge your muscles beyond their present capacity (a.k.a. Progressive Overload)
Final Words
As you just read in this blog post, you do not need to go to any extremes to preserve muscle during a fat loss phase. As long as you eat at an appropriate deficit, consume enough protein and train regularly, you will not lose muscle.
If you are interested in learning more about maximizing your muscular potential, check out my new eBook “The Art & Science of Muscle Growth. This book translates the currently available scientific data about muscle growth in “Basic English”, so everyone can start implementing an evidence-based approach to training and nutrition.
Aug 10, 2016 | Exercise
Do one quick Google search on how to train for muscle growth and you’ll get a massive amount of different answers. Although muscle growth is indeed a bit complicated, it essentially can be boiled down to one single key principle: Progressive Overload. In this article, I’ll explain why progressive overload is an important component of your training if you want to get bigger and stronger.
What Is Progressive Overload?
Progressive overload refers to training your muscles beyond their present capacity. In other words, being able to lift more weight or perform more volume (like an extra rep or set) than before. There is research indicating this is a key driver of muscle growth.
Progressive overload has a greater impact on muscle growth than any muscle building ”secret”
The training you perform in the gym is considered a stress that forces an adaptive response. Your body adapts to training by building bigger and stronger muscles so that it can deal more efficiently with the provided training stress in the near future. So for consistent muscle growth to occur, you need to constantly challenge your muscles beyond their present capacity
This means that you need to program your training in such a fashion that it allows you to train with heavier weights and more volume over multiple training periods.
But a stronger muscle isn’t always a bigger one, right?
That’s true, research shows that your body recognizes movement patterns and becomes more efficient in them after repetitive practice. This enables you to lift more weight (get stronger) without actually having bigger muscles. This is known as Neuromuscular Adaptations.
But after a certain point, your training becomes very efficient and an increase in strength can at least partially be attributed to an increase in muscle size, which allows for more force to be produced.
Training For Muscle Growth
Even though it’s to a lesser degree, research shows that next to progressive overload (or more specifically, increased mechanical tension), there are two other primary ways muscle growth can be achieved.
Damaging the muscle fibers, so they can grow back bigger and stronger. This naturally occurs with resistance training and trying to maximize it doesn’t seem to positively affect the amount of muscle you build. So training specifically for muscle damage is not necessary.
Training the muscle to failure. Making the muscle fatigue, like in high rep ”pump style” training.
The issue with training specifically for metabolic fatigue or muscle damage is that it’s counterproductive to the goal of progressively overloading your muscles. Research shows that training with high reps, short rest-intervals, and lighter weights does build muscle, but it’s at the cost of another important variable: external load.
Think about it, training with very high volume and short rest-intervals limits the amount of weight you can lift. This results in less overload in exchange for more metabolic fatigue. As said earlier, progressively overloading your muscles has been suggested to be more important for gaining muscle
Unfortunately, training for progressive overload isn’t a concept many follow. When you look at the average ”bro” in the gym, you’ll see them perform random drop sets, supersets and taking 30-60 seconds rest in between sets without even thinking about long-term progress.
This is something we have adopted from the world of bodybuilding, and it works very well for them. But that’s probably because the big bodybuilding stars are all on performance-enhancing drugs. Because of this, they react differently to training.
There’s even a study that shows non-training steroid users build more muscle than resistance-training natural individuals. In case you didn’t get the message, the steroid-users built more muscle, without any form of exercise.
So just because you see fitness celebrities build massive amounts of muscle by doing drop sets, supersets, mega-sets or whatever, doesn’t mean you should mimic them. As a natural lifter, you’re way better of lifting heavy and making awesome progress in the gym.
Learn More In My New eBook
If you are interested in learning more about maximizing your muscular potential, check out my new eBook “The Art & Science of Muscle Growth. This book translates the currently available scientific data on muscle growth in “simple English”, so everyone can start implementing an evidence-based approach to training and nutrition.
Sep 27, 2015 | Exercise, Nutrition
Muscle growth is one of the key pillars for building an aesthetic physique. Unfortunately, there is plenty of contradicting information available about muscle growth on the internet. Complicated articles and drugged up bodybuilders make muscle growth seem harder than it really is.
In this article, I will cover the basic principles of building muscle. Hopefully, this will help you get rid of some of the confusion.
Why Muscles Grow
Muscle growth is nothing more than an adaptive response to the stress that resistance training puts on your muscles. Resistance training forces your body to go through an adaptation so it can handle future stresses more efficiently.
Research shows that this adaptation occurs by building bigger and stronger muscle fibers than before.
This helps explain why novice lifters gain muscle faster than experienced lifters. Novice lifters have to adapt to a new stress; resistance training. This also explains why progressive overload is key for continuous muscle growth. The tension you put on your muscles needs to increase over time so that your muscles can adapt to training stimuli.
Nutrition To Support Growth
Nutrition has a great effect on muscular adaptations. For instance, studies show that during periods of caloric restriction, muscle growth significantly decreases.
To put yourself in a position that is optimal for muscular adaptations, you need to consider the following:
Proper Recovery Is Key
Doing “whatever it takes” and going all-out in the gym 7 days per week may sound hardcore, but it is not optimal for muscle growth. When you train, muscle fibers break down. During your rest, these recover and grow back bigger and stronger than before. If you train too much, your body will have to put too much focus on recovery, rather than working on making you gain more muscle.
Up to a certain point, volume (Reps*Sets*Weight) has a linear relationship with hypertrophy. This means that training more only results in more muscle growth up to a certain volume level. An extensive research review shows that a good rule of thumb for total weekly volume per muscle group is 60-180 reps.
This is a good starting volume range for most trainees. Whether you should be on the low- or high-end of this volume range will depend on your training experience and the rep range used during exercise.
For example, experienced trainees generally need more volume than novice trainees to progress, and when high-rep training is used, more volume (total reps performed) is required to achieve similar muscle growth.
A good way to organize this training volume is by dividing it over 2-3 workouts per week. There’s research showing that dividing your weekly volume per muscle group over multiple training sessions is beneficial for muscle growth.
Learn All About Muscle Growth
Since muscle growth can be a confusing topic, I have written an eBook about it. “The Art & Science of Muscle Growth” translates the currently available scientific data in “Simple English”, so that everyone can have a deeper understanding of muscle growth and how to achieve it in the most effective ways possible.
I am confident that this eBook will deliver tremendous value, that’s why I am offering a 30-day money back guarantee. You can purchase this eBook by clicking on the book below.
