[quote]cparker wrote:
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
[quote]cparker wrote:
I’ll never understand why people think they need to do these extreme programs, I squat 1-2x a week and have for several years and continuously make progress. People that squat everyday and are strong are outliers, everyone else who does it has a mediocre squat at best and is shitty at everything else.[/quote]
Frequency isn’t the only component of stress in a program. You can squat every day and undertrain, you can squat once a week and over train. If you pay attention to the strong guys that hit these really high frequencies they almost always have some of the LEAST extreme training sessions.
People think that squatting every day means you take your leg day from your once a week split and do that every day, it doesn’t. My squat workout this morning was a grand total of 13 reps including warm ups. That’s extreme while 25 sets of legs on leg day isn’t? I’d say high frequency is actually the more natural non extreme method and people who starting putting a weeks’ worth of training into a session are the extreme ones.[/quote]
You are correct in this and im sure your training is appropriate for you given that you understand weekly frequency/volume as a whole as opposed to a day. But I more gear this towards newer lifters who don’t really have any business with such a high frequency because their form and recovery will not keep up.
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There are lots of ways to skin a cat. I actually like high frequency for beginners. You can get enough volume to grow and max time under the bar to practice the movements while staying far away from failure but still being moderately heavy and challenging. Form breakdown can come because of just weight OR intensity in a set. So, who is going to have more form breakdown and risk of injury, the beginner squatting for 1 set of 5 at 135 but 5 days a week, or the one squatting for 5 sets of 5 at 135 1 day a week? The overall volume and workload are the same, but the guy squatting 5 days a week is going to have better form. meanwhile the 4th and 5th set of the 1 day a week guy may be getting ugly.
Again there can be problems with the high frequency. The bigger problem is that beginners will watch bodybuilders or normal powerlifters pounding away at the volume/intensity in a session and copy that. In that style training each session is do or die 1/4 of a month worth of importance. You cannot approach high frequency that way. Daily training is a clock punching job. A roofer carrying shingles all day is never going to sniff ammonia and load himself to the breaking point for an all out live or die effort. He’s going do keep a moderate load and keep on plugging with the knowledge that he’s going to be back doing it again tomorrow. And over time his loads are naturally going to go up and he’ll start being able to get more work done. You have to have a different mind set that is very different that what typical training is like today. But, with that approach there is nothing wrong with high frequency at any level.