Many studies have shown that the same load divided over more sessions has
shown to be more effective for force production.
However, if hypertrophy is your goal to grow into a weight category, a
higher chemical stress can be had by doing the load in fewer sessions
(creating a bigger SRA and adaptation; but at the cost of becoming
efficient/tolerant of a stimulus. Efficiency is the enemy of strength and
power, proficiency is the key; given the former is the ability to conserve
energy to do more work, whereas the latter is using as much energy as
possible to do the same work in less time).
Beyond basic levels, they can’t co-exist (well, from a drug free athlete
point of view anyway).
Volume is always almost the key to progress when you plateau, but people
presume this needs to be made up of more reps in a single session.
eg:
Lifter B trains bench press Mon and Thurs, 5x3x85%. He decided to up his
volume to 7x3x85%…
All that happens is he can’t recover for Thursday from Monday due to
+40-50% volume increase, so has to dial back… and ultimately doesn’t
progress.
Lifter A also trains bench press Mon and thurs, but he decides to up his
volume by training Mon/Wed/Fri with a 4x3x85%.
Lifter A totals 36 lifts @ 85% in a week but is sore, beat up, and has no
room to increase load in the following weeks.
Lifter B totals 36 lifts @85% in a week, but is fresh, explosive, and has
plenty of room to increase load in the following weeks.
Put it this way, if powerlifting became a paid olympic sport… you think
we would train a lift 1x a week?
Also be sure to distinguish between lift frequency and turning up to the
gym frequency…
Going to the gym every single day but only training a lift or muscle group
1-2x a week is LOW frequency. The only frequency that counts is for the
skill you are trying to evolve.
The 3x3x3 system can be done over 9 training sessions by dividing each lift
down… if you had the time!
thanks for reading