I overheard a conversation between a somewhat athletic looking gym goer and a personal trainer/staff guy about frequency. The trainer was kind of stressing the need for rest and taking days off and that 3 days a week or 4 at most is optimal.
I know his audience is completely different and that the customer’s goals are probably not to reach an elite level in powerlifting, but it got me thinking about all the guys we always hear about in (or writing) articles, doing crazy stuff on youtube, and even all the unheard of but strong guys out there who have accomplished elite numbers – is there a single one that really trained so little yet got so strong?
Does anyone know any examples of people in the gym only three times a week, or in and out within 45 minutes maybe only 4 times a week?
How about yourself? How much time do you spend in the gym and what level are you at?
I’m pretty much intermediate and spend 5 days in the gym a week now. I find 4-5 to be optimal for me as I like to do higher volume and also spend time practicing stuff besides the big three and also sometimes experimenting with new movements.
I could be wrong (sorry if this isn’t relevant) but people saw good gains on 3x per week…
Especially High School / College athletes who are perhaps new to strength training but who are otherwise athletic and are doing sports specific training as well.
?
I put in a LOT MORE time than that. But… When I just started out I needed to foam roll for about an hour to do a kinda sorta semi approximation of a squat. So…
I suspect it depends on the quality of your movement.
Highly depends on what you count as gym time. Just straight lifting for me is anywhere between 3-5 times per week about 1-1.5 hours. The 3-5 varies how much activity I do outside the gym, for example if I am also doing swimming practices that gets reduced to 3-4 times per week, if nothing else then 4-5 times. But if you include all the other crap I do on top: stretching, foam rolling, recovery workouts, that get bumped to 6-7 times per week and each day being 1-2 hours or so.
All workouts are not equal. It is dumb to talk about optimization of one variable separate from other important variables.
There are plenty of guys out that “training” for 2 hour sessions 3 days a week or whatever. But I could do more work than most of them in 30 minutes once a week.
Go do a 2 hour workout with 5-8 minute breaks between sets, then do a 30 minute one with 30 seconds rest.
Talking about frequency and time spent in the gym is meaningless without knowing what you are actually accomplishing there.
I personally am at 10 sessions a week 30-45 minutes a session.
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
All workouts are not equal. It is dumb to talk about optimization of one variable separate from other important variables.
There are plenty of guys out that “training” for 2 hour sessions 3 days a week or whatever. But I could do more work than most of them in 30 minutes once a week.
Go do a 2 hour workout with 5-8 minute breaks between sets, then do a 30 minute one with 30 seconds rest.
Talking about frequency and time spent in the gym is meaningless without knowing what you are actually accomplishing there.
I personally am at 10 sessions a week 30-45 minutes a session.[/quote]
Good points, DD. I’m pretty sure frequency of workouts is more important than duration. I think something happens at a cellular level during and after a workout and the more times you get this response the better.
I think many powerlifters will have “extra sessions” where they do something, not as stressful as a full-blown workout but enough to get some kind of a response.
I train 3 sometimes 4 times each week. I’ve been competing for 5 years and, although I’m close to an elite total in competition, I’d put myself intermediate plus.
Training frequency is personal and you can’t really say what is ‘optimal’ for everyone. For me, more that 3-4 times per week and my joints hate me particularly when intensity goes up. I’ll wake up in the night with hand and shoulder pain from squatting. When I’m nearing a meet, I generally dial it back or I’ll end up fried. Much of that could be age related since I’m in my late 40’s.
I’m definitely a beginner, maybe starting to make the transition to intermediate. But what I have done that has worked really well for me so far is have one day a week when I don’t even think about the gym, and that is non negotiable. Then, I have 2 days where I go in and stretch/do some light conditioning, and if I want to lift a little bit (for whatever reason - just feel good, feel like I need a little practice with lighter weight, or I want to hit a movement I don’t do often, etc), I can do that. Then, the other 4 days are hard training days. The system seems to work for me, because more often than not I am lifting 6 days a week, but with enough room for modification so that I never feel too beat up, mentally exhausted, overtrained, whatever you want to call it.
Problem is, it’s hard to listen to your own body haha. Sometimes you don’t want to push hard and you should, sometimes you DO want to push hard and you shouldn’t. And then there is everything in between. But it seems like figuring that aspect out is a huge component to making your best gains.
I’ve been on a twice per week plan for years. In 80-90 minutes I hit a lot of stuff with intensity. Sweat dripping all over… I’ve gone from newbie to intermediate on this plan in a few years. I admit to doing some light things occasionally during off days like a quick set of pullups, pushups, curls, or clean/jerk, but these are not programmed and I just hit them in my garage as I’m passing by.
I find that two high quality intense workouts are more productive, easy to schedule, and fun than going more often. Add up the driving time, the changing time, etc., and it just makes sense if you’re balancing training with a lot of other responsibilities.
Example @ 200lb BW
Superset 1: Bench press (5x5 @ 275) and pullups (20,15,10,8)
Set 2: Squats (5x5 @ 295) or Deadlift (10x2 @ 385)
Optional: rows, clean/press (135), clean/jerk (155)
Closer: Curls or Farmer’s walk
About 6 workouts per week right now, 4 major training sessions and 2 extra workouts. Would love to get the time and work capacity to start adding more extra workouts.
A good article from Louie here on topic about the benefits. Doesn’t mention it in this article, but in others he’s talked about doing 7-10 extra workouts per week himself, in addition to the 4 major training sessions, as a means of keeping pace with the young bulls in his gym. Started off with adding one or two, and then as he progressed and GPP improved he continued to add more.
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
All workouts are not equal. It is dumb to talk about optimization of one variable separate from other important variables.
There are plenty of guys out that “training” for 2 hour sessions 3 days a week or whatever. But I could do more work than most of them in 30 minutes once a week.
Go do a 2 hour workout with 5-8 minute breaks between sets, then do a 30 minute one with 30 seconds rest.
Talking about frequency and time spent in the gym is meaningless without knowing what you are actually accomplishing there.
I personally am at 10 sessions a week 30-45 minutes a session.[/quote]
Haha, I am at 5 sessions a week for exactly double that time range! The difference between a 30 minute work out and a 45 is pretty huge, even if you’re busting ass in both.
I like all your points but I wasn’t trying to directly talk about optimization.
I guess what I’m trying to see if there is a pattern to overall gym time for strong powerlifters. Even if that means counting BSing time (ie just light sets or practice sets or whatever). I get the feeling if we look at strong people it’s pretty damn high.
This probably seems pretty obvious. Strong dudes are strong, and they spend quite a bit of time in the gym. So obvious it’s stupid…and then some guy comes along expecting to get jacked through three 45 minute sessions a week.
As often as possible, I take a day or two off when I feel too tired usually after a squat day or back/deadlift day. Been working great so far. That being said, I will transition to the 5/3/1 SST template in a few weeks and thats gonna be 4 days a week.
Currently 4 days a week(5/3/1) with 1.5-2mi walk every non training day. I do plan on adding alittle more on “off” days with a mix of foam rolling, stretching, and band work(primarily upper back attention). After I experiment with that increase of work, I may move up to 5 days/week.