Yo, I recently have taken to training chest and back twice per week. I only do bi’s, tri’s, delts, etc. once per week, since they’re little and get hit when I bust chest and back anyway. Like I was saying, during a given week, my total sets for chest or back each come to 30-35. Is that “crazy” as in, “Man you’re so crazy, you’re gonna get HUGE.” Or is that crazy like “Man, you’re so crazy with your overtrained whithered-up crippled bitch-ass?” I’m 22 and my diet is high-caloric, quality-caloric, so I feel like the fuel is there, along with the desire. What kinda crazy am I?
Way too much sets. Why are you training chest and back 2 times per week? Thats insane, especially with the number of sets you are doing. What about legs? You did not mention you train legs.
I hit legs once a week, too. Legs are inferred in the “etc.” after “…delts” above, as are traps and such.
If you get bigger and stronger then you are “kick ass crazy”. If you start getting small injuries and get weaker you are “overtrained crazy”. And if you just stagnate you are “Wasting your time crazy”.
It’s all goal dependent. There’s nothing wrong with hitting a given muscle group multiple times per week. You must however adjust your training volume. Generally 12-15 sets per workout (total) is a good range to be in if you are lookin to make twice per week training viable.
Which begs for my second assertion. Charles Poliquin and others (Chad Waterbury, for instance) have stated numerous times that a muscle is best worked every five days.
That said, it is also recognized that you need to be pain free for 3 to 4 days after your training in order to consider yourself not only recovered, but also adapted. That’s important because it’s the adaptation we’re striving for and not the recovery. Recovery brings you back to your baseline. Adaptation is when you progress beyond your previous baseline.
So if a muscle is best worked on a five day split, you work chest and back on day 1 and on day six. Seeing as you need to be pain free for three or four days, delayed onset muscle soreness should subside after day 2. Day 3 you should be pain free, day 6 you hit 'em again.
That being the case, if you fall under those perameters and given your training volume, there’s nothing wrong with that. If one of the variables mentioned above is not in line with your physiology then make the necessary adjustments in order to acheive the training effect described above.
Lastly, the idea that a body part should be hit once a week is a little archaic. Isn’t it better to have 2-3 or even 4 or 5 adaptations per week instead of just one? I obviously lean towards the multiple adaptations. This is for two reasons.
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The amount of “damage” done to a muscle is less and the recovery ability isn’t as much of an issue. You make up the decrease in “damage” by increasing the frequency at which you expose the muscle to an overload.
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The once a week approach is rooted in bodybuilding with the goal being mass development. When considering strength development and bodyfat reduction as independent goals, then you want to stimulate a muscle as often as possible whether you’re trying to preserve it whle dieting or trying to increase it’s contractile/nervous properties. Still consider that you’ll reap more hypertrophy when hitting a given muscle group.
so your training your upper body three days per week?
Goldberg: My split is Mon: Chest, Tue: Back and Tri’s, Wed: Delts and Bi’s, Thu: Chest and Legs, Fri: Back.
BigRob: I missed what you typed at the end of your message. Hypertrophy is what I’m going for and what are you saying is the best way?
I also might add that the reason I moved to chest and back twice a week is that my bi and tri growth was far outstripping my chest and back growth when I did each body part once-per-week. I thought this might be due to the fact that, besides working tri’s and bi’s on their own days, they got worked secondarily during chest and back days, effectively being worked twice a week. Hope that makes sense, thanks for your responses.
It’s possible that this program will work for you. If you’re genetically gifted, this might be a split you can keep using. If you’re a newbie, it will work for a while, but eventually you’ll need to tone down the volume. Personally, I would take Thursday off, train legs by themselves on Friday, put back and chest together on Saturday, and keep Sunday off. Typically, when I’m prioritizing, I’ll pick one muscle group and train it twice per week. Since you’re choosing two muscle groups, you may see diminishing results. It’s all about experimentation… as mentioned above, if you get injured or start losing size/strength, then you’re crazy like a dumbass if you stay on that split.
I’m skeptical of all this talk of overtraining. I’m convinced overtraining is mostly neurological in nature, so if you cut your sets a few reps short of failure, you should be able to add in a lot more volume without ill effects. We’re all individual, so if what you’re doing works, then keep it up.
As long as you do maintain your high-caloric (high quality) diet, you should be fine. But I also think you should train your legs on their own day.
Did you get that chest and back routine from flex? If your hitting the sauce that workout just may work. I’ve found best results from about 7 sets for major muscles and about 2-3 for smaller assisting ones, but thats just me.
Amen Kingprotein… where in the hell did all this "only train once per week frequency start? " Its gotten pretty silly, as witness from some of the posts. Bottom line, if you are making gains ( bodyweight, increase in poundage, or reps performed) you are not overtraining. If you aren’t then you may be. I just think a whole lotta folks take a theory and make a doctrine out of it. I have never trained less than twice a week per bodypart, and have never felt “overtrained”. Granted, I am sore most of the time, but if you can’t handle that, get out of the kitchen, as mom used to say.
It would be more reasonable if the total sets per week for chest and back combined were 30-35.
That is a classic!
I just think that maybe just a little too much upper body. In one of poliquins question columns he told a reader that it wasnt wise to put two upper body days back to back. there is a lot of crossover in upper body training. i would think that two days per week would sufficient.
Listen to your body. If your run down and feel like shit then you are overtraining. If you’re tired and sore but still feel healthy then you’re hardcore. Use your journal look at your progression. Ask yourself if the gains you are making are better now or before you started this training cycle.
Also on a little side note. I no longer believe in overtraining. Your body is incredibly adaptable. Your muscles will grow to meet the demands you are putting on them. I work in construction. I lift heavy shit all day at work and then I train at night. I have seen more gains since I started this job than I ever did before.
Bottom line: If you are making progress then keep it up.
Keep Liftin’ Hard T-Brother,
Mack
AdRock:
As far as your split goes, maybe something like this would work better:
Day 1 Chest and Back (higher volume - 15 sets)
Day 2 Legs (one week squats, next week dead’s)
Day 3 rest
Day 4 Chest and Back (lower volume - 12 sets)
Day 5 rest
Day 6 repeat
You could use something like that until your chest and back are up to speed and then change back to training your arms in a more traditional split.
This is by no means the only way but it’s very effective and it’s something you may never have tried before so the results would be good due to the fact that its something new.
The last part of my post basically meant more adaptations=more growth. So training a body part multiple times per week can be great for growth, assuming you adjust your training volume accordingly and aren’t experiencing too much soreness between workouts.
If you aren’t supposed to experience soreness for 3 days before a workout, then you shouldn’t experience too much soreness. How to train to grow and avoid excessive soreness is difficult though. It’s something that comes with experience.
Try to use the set guidelines above and avoid forced reps, negatives and/or working to complete failure. You may just have exceptional genetics and don’t need to take precautions like this, but I suspect that’s not necessarily the case.
Stick with it awhile and see what happens. The only way your going to know if it’s effective for you is to do it. What works for one guy might not work for another. Obviously your volume is very high, but again it just might work for you, see how you feel in a week or two.
AbRock,
Also, see the answer to my question “Soreness and Training Frequency” in issue 210. That might help too.
Thanks for all the comments. I really appreciate the advice. Come Monday, I’ll have to see what kind of poundages I’m throwing around.