Has a anyone experimented with high frequency training on their delts? Especially side delts? I’m considering changing my shoulder route to basically doing 4-6 sets, 5 to 6 days a week, modest intensity.
My current routine is 2x per week, 15-18 sets. General mix of side laterals, facepulls, upright rows, and overhead press. However I go pretty intense on these. I take most sets very near failure once I get warmed up properly.
This routine has worked, I’ve had people specifically comment on how they’ve grown… but given that my mid delts almost always seem to recover quickly no matter how hard I hammer them, I’m wondering if a higher frequency, lower intensity would be better.
Im thinking that I can do my usual gym machine stuff 2x week and dumbells at home 2-3x per week. Maybe 4-6 sets daily but not taken to “Dorian Yates” level of intensity.
Other background info. I have healthy shoulders, am 45, lift for health/fun, not a competitor, not on gear, and I want the kind of shoulders that get me accused of being on gear. That might not be actually attainable but why the hell not make it a goal?
You can do something like lateral raises daily, just keep the volume low. Christian has a good article on body parts you can reasonably train as frequently as daily. I did it for awhile but didn’t see much, if any, extra growth beyond my usual. Endurance obviously went up. Pretty easy experiment to do. Just don’t do the “ego” laterals. Stay very light, move slow (no momentum), incorporate pauses etc.
These China weightlifting bros say 4-6 sets of 10 reps everyday.
As an old guy training for health you probably don’t want to do as much volume as a super freak world champion weight lifter, so maybe start a little conservative.
If it’s working and they are feeling good, I’d be hesitant to change anything. Keeping extra volume in your back pocket for when it stops working could be a powerful tool when you need it. It’s entirely possible that you’re progressing at the perfect amount of volume for you right now, and it can often be detrimental to fall into the “more = better” trap.
Progressing and feeling 100% recovered between sessions? You’re in the golden zone my dude.
Watched a paul carter tt video recently were he sites research showing that spaming the shoulders with laterals several days a week does not result in any additional gains over training them 1-2 times per week. I tried it 15-20 years ago, did 2 sets of laterals to failure 5 days a week for 6 weeks, found it made no difference.
