Workout frequency & Volume

One of the most controversial topics in bodybuilding and in fitness is “The workout frequency”. Some say train each muscle group once a week, some say train each muscle group 2 times a week, some say train 6 days a week and some say train 4 days a week and so on…

And the next one is workout volume. The common words that you would hear in the gym are something like this.. Train 25 sets for your big muscles and 20 for your smaller muscles or sometimes you would hear, just train until you absolutely kill the muscle and so on…

For the new bodybuilding aspirants the workout routine of their favorite superstar is just the correct routine for them. They never seem to analyze or understand the volume and the frequency involved in their workout.

Let me be clear on one thing here, “WE NATURAL BODYBUILDERS” cannot follow the pros workout regiment. Let me explain why!!!!

Just pay attention to the following topics, you will know why.

Logic of growth:
Most of you might know but still I will explain the growth process. When we train in the gym, let us assume that I am doing bicep workout today. When I do my barbell curls, indirectly I just break the muscle tissue in the bicep region. After the workout when I eat enough protein with all the other macro-nutrients I send materials to my bicep to recover. When I recover I first repair the damage. And after the recovery I overcompensate the muscle tissue. When I repeat this, my bicep grows. Remember, growth does not take place at gym. It takes place while you rest.

Recovery ability:
The ability of a muscle to recover from a workout is called recovery ability. This is where the genetics plays a vital role. You would have read that Arnold trained each muscle twice a week. It was because his genetics were really good and was able to recover. The same is with most of the pros. If all of us had the same type of genetics then there won’t be any difference among the humans.

When Pros can train each muscle twice a week why not you?

The answer is simple. If you feel that your muscle recovers fully in two days, yes you can. But let us be practical here, We do not use huge amount of steroids to recover fast. These steroids just improve the bodies recovery ability, but with a lot of health hazards. So never try that. Never schedule a workout before you feel fully recovered.

Rational bodybuilding:
Now that you know about logic of growth and recovery ability, my job of explaining workout frequency and volume would be easy.

As you all know, we damage the muscle at gym and the growth occurs while we rest. So let us imagine the damage of muscle tissue as creating a hole on the muscle.

When we do a very intense set for a muscle, here we virtually create a small hole on the muscle (let us imagine damage to hole here for the sake of understanding).When we do another intense set for the same muscle, here we make the hole deeper. Another set and the hole gets still deeper. As I said earlier the growth process starts after the workout when we rest. So if the hole is very deep, all the protein that we take will be used up to fill the hole. But what about the overcompensation? Before the muscle fully recovers it would be more than a week. So our “go to gym” syndrome will kill the growth and we would train the same muscle again. So if you observe here, our progress is zero. This is the reason why most of the bodybuilders lack to make gains.

So what should you do?
Just try to be logical and rational about your workouts and your frequency. Train optimal, train no more than what is required to create a small hole onto the muscle. But remember lazy workouts are not going to help. What I mean here is just choose very minimal amount of exercises per body part and do several warm-ups and do one or may be two all out sets to failure. By reaching temporary failure of the local muscle you can be sure that you created that required damage to the muscle. In other words, the optimal damage. When you reach your failure, you not only damage the muscle but also induce the growth stimulus of your body’s growth mechanism. So when you rest and eat proper nutrition, you have no other option but to grow.

Now you would have understood about the volume of workout. There is one more important topic, the training frequency. Just make a practice of listening to your muscle. Don’t train when you feel that your muscle is not fully recovered. Take a day or two off. Believe me you wont loose your gains. Have you noticed that after a complete week or two of rest you always come back stronger to the gym. You are able to feel your muscle better during the workout!! This is because your muscle is fully recovered. So don’t go by the magic numbers specified in the magazines, listen to your muscle and train accordingly. You will make optimal gains.

The nutshell:
There is no magic number of sets or number of days you must train in a week. All you have to do is train each of your muscle with no more than what is required to induce the body’s growth mechanism and not train the same muscle until that muscle and its supporter muscles are fully recovered.

As of now, according to my recovery ability, I train each of my muscle 2 times a month. And I make it a point that I don’t train two continuous days, because I might not train at my optimum because of the previous days workout. The results are amazing. I gained about 10 pounds in the past 10 weeks. And I have increased my strength by 10% in all my lifts. So remember quality of the workouts gives you results, not the quantity of the workout.

This blog is a tribute to the legend, Late Mike Mentzer. He was the man who really introduced the High intensity training methodology and made the bodybuilding world think logically and rationally towards the workout.

That’s all folks. Train smart, think rational and gain fast.