How Often Should You Train For BEST Strength
Summary
TLDRDr. Mike from Renaissance Periodization discusses the impact of training frequency on strength plateaus. He explains the benefits of higher frequencies, such as increased opportunities for muscle growth and improved technique through more frequent, lower-volume sessions. However, he also warns of the potential downsides, including joint irritation, systemic and psychological fatigue. He suggests adjusting training frequency by either adding technique-focused sessions or reducing overloading sessions to find the optimal balance for individual progress.
Takeaways
- 🏋️ Training frequency can impact strength gains, with higher frequencies potentially leading to more progress opportunities.
- 📈 Splitting training volume across more sessions can sustainably increase weekly volume and muscle growth.
- 🍽️ An analogy to eating habits explains how spreading training sessions throughout the week can be more effective than fewer, larger sessions.
- 🏋️♂️ Fewer sets per session at higher frequencies can lead to higher quality sets due to less fatigue and better technique.
- 💪 Technique development is enhanced with more frequent training, especially beneficial for those learning new movements.
- ⏰ The recovery-adaptation curve is a critical factor in determining how often one can effectively train a particular movement.
- 🚫 High frequency training can lead to joint and connective tissue irritation, a common issue in powerlifting.
- 😓 Systemic and psychological fatigue are significant risks with high frequency training, potentially leading to burnout.
- 🔄 To break through plateaus, consider adjusting training frequency by either adding technique-focused sessions or reducing overloading sessions.
- ⚖️ Normative training frequencies for strength training typically range from two to four hard sessions per movement type per week.
Q & A
What is the main topic of discussion in Dr. Mike's video?
-The main topic of discussion in Dr. Mike's video is optimizing training frequency to break through strength plateaus.
What are the benefits of higher training frequencies according to the video?
-Higher training frequencies offer more opportunities to stimulate progress, potentially lead to more muscle growth, allow for a higher total volume per week when volume is split, and can improve technique development.
How does eating frequency relate to training frequency in the video?
-The video uses the analogy of eating frequency to explain training frequency, suggesting that spreading out meals or training sessions throughout the day can lead to better absorption and performance, just as spreading out training sessions can lead to better training quality and volume.
What is the impact of fewer sets per session with higher training frequency?
-With higher training frequency, fewer sets per session can lead to higher quality sets because fatigue and technique deterioration are less pronounced, allowing for better performance and technique.
What are the potential downsides of high training frequency mentioned in the video?
-The potential downsides of high training frequency include joint and connective tissue irritation, systemic fatigue, and excessive psychological fatigue.
Why might some lifters avoid ultra-high frequencies in their training?
-Some lifters avoid ultra-high frequencies because it can lead to unsustainable levels of fatigue and potential injury, especially for those with large volumes of training.
What is the recommended normative frequency for strength training according to the video?
-The recommended normative frequency for strength training is generally two to four overloading sessions per movement type per week.
How can one adjust their training frequency if they suspect they are overdoing it?
-If one suspects they are overdoing their training frequency, they can reduce the number of overloading sessions and replace one with a technique-only session to reduce fatigue and maintain technical development.
What should be the first step if someone is considering increasing their training frequency?
-The first step in increasing training frequency should be to add a technique-only session to improve technical development without significantly increasing fatigue.
What is the advice for someone who is not seeing improvements after adding a technique-only session?
-If there are no improvements after adding a technique-only session, one should assess whether they feel sufficiently challenged and if their joints can handle more frequency before deciding to add more overloading sessions.
Outlines
💪 Optimizing Training Frequency for Strength Gains
Dr. Mike discusses the importance of optimizing training frequency to break through strength plateaus. He highlights that increasing training frequency (e.g., from two to three sessions per week) provides more opportunities for muscle growth and allows for higher weekly volume. He compares it to eating multiple smaller meals to meet high-calorie requirements, emphasizing that spreading out training volume across more sessions can improve set quality, technique, and overall results.
🏋️♂️ Balancing Training Frequency and Joint Health
Dr. Mike explores the potential downsides of high-frequency training, particularly the risk of joint and connective tissue irritation. He warns that frequent heavy lifting, especially in powerlifting, can lead to cumulative stress on the body, resulting in chronic pain and fatigue. High-frequency training might also cause excessive systemic and psychological fatigue, making it challenging to sustain intense efforts across multiple sessions per week.
⚖️ Adjusting Frequency to Break Through Plateaus
Dr. Mike offers practical advice on adjusting training frequency to overcome plateaus. For those experiencing overtraining, he suggests reducing frequency by converting one of the overloading sessions into a technique-focused session, which eases the physical and mental burden while maintaining technical development. Conversely, for those undertraining, he recommends gradually increasing frequency by adding technique sessions before intensifying them to overloading sessions, ensuring recovery and adaptation are maintained.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Training Frequency
💡Volume
💡Set Quality
💡Technique Development
💡Stimulus Recovery Adaptation (SRA) Curve
💡Systemic Fatigue
💡Psychological Fatigue
💡Normative Frequencies
💡Overloading Sessions
💡Technique-Only Sessions
Highlights
Training frequency could be the factor causing strength plateaus.
Higher training frequencies provide more opportunities to stimulate progress, including muscle growth.
Splitting volume across more sessions can lead to a higher total weekly volume sustainably.
An analogy is made comparing training frequency to eating frequency for optimal intake.
Fewer sets per session at higher frequencies can lead to higher quality sets.
Technique development can be improved with more frequent training sessions.
The stimulus recovery adaptation curve is shorter for technique, allowing for more frequent training.
Higher frequencies can lead to joint and connective tissue irritation.
Systemic fatigue can accumulate with high frequency and intensity training.
Psychological fatigue is a significant factor with high frequency training.
Higher frequency training can be powerful but also overwhelming.
Normative frequencies for strength training are generally two to four overloading sessions per movement type per week.
If plateauing with high frequency, consider reducing overloading sessions and replacing with technique sessions.
Adding a technique-only session can be a good first step to increase frequency without adding fatigue.
If adding technique sessions doesn't help, consider reducing the total number of sessions.
If underdoing it, start by adding a technique-only session before increasing to overloading sessions.
Always consider whether you feel sufficiently challenged and if your joints can handle the increased frequency.
Transcripts
hey folks dr mike here for renaissance
periodization breaking through strength
plateaus video number nine
optimizing your training frequency
training frequency could be the thing
that is plateauing your strength
so let's take a look at the benefits
first of higher training frequencies
there are quite a few first of all
high frequencies like you know training
three times per week instead of two
times per week for like the same for
let's say bench or pressing or something
gives you more training sessions which
means more opportunities to stimulate uh
progress
which includes probably more muscle
growth all things being equal
and an interesting thing is if you do
more weekly sessions and you split up
the volume make it a little smaller your
total volume per week can actually be
sustainably a little bit higher than if
you
try you know fewer frequencies so at
some point you can actually just do more
weekly volume by splitting it up into
more frequencies it's kind of actually a
perfect analogy uh almost a homology
here is
you have you know people ask you know
strong men and stuff why do you eat five
or six times a day uh you could say oh
metabolic rate blah blah blah that's
bullshit but the real reason is
motherfucker if you have to eat 10 000
calories a day you fucking can't do it
in one meal not reliably after 5 000 you
get so full you don't want to eat for
hours and hours and hours and then you
go to sleep you're like fuck i only had
xyz number of calories you really want
to smash the cows you got to get your
ass on a schedule and eat like you know
like three or four times a day at least
probably more just like every time you
get a little less full you smash it in
again
same idea kind of with training or
similar like if you're gonna do like a
ton of work for your legs to get your
legs really strong
training legs once a week is kind of
like could you have done twice like yeah
i could have like was why didn't you
right
and a sort of a similar thing there
um
[Music]
another advantage is by doing more
frequency even if you keep the overall
weekly volume the same you end up doing
fewer sets per session right so if you
do 15 total sets for for squatting per
week over two days like one is eight and
one is seven sets okay
but if you split it up into three
workouts each workout has only five sets
in it what that allows you to do is
because it's fewer sessions per set each
set is a higher quality because remember
set quality both in how much weight you
can lift for how many reps the mind
muscle connection technique everything
tends to deteriorate like you know kind
of curvilinearly after the first few
sets it all fucking goes to hell so if
you're doing seven sets
some of those maybe last three two sets
are like meh not that high quality if
you do five sets they're kind of all
really high quality and drop off only
occurs after that is for both technique
and force output and everything so if
you can split up your session to the
smaller ones maybe you can do a better
job in each session and just never get
that tired so that's definitely a
consideration
another thing
is potentially much better technique
development especially if you're just
learning the technique but even for
long-term lifters
the stimulus recovery adaptation curve
how long it takes for you to train
something
get the uh so you have the sort of
fatigue occurs recovery occurs
adaptation occurs and the curve
completes itself so when you can train
again essentially the window of training
that you've bought yourself
those curves are different and if you
guys have seen the various books that
we've written at rp there's a whole lot
of information on that those curves are
different lengths for all kinds of
different stuff and strength so for
example if you really go all out and try
as hard as you can your sort of maximum
central nervous system ability to do the
best job you can geez those curves might
take like a week after a really really
hard session to come back to your best
techniques not the same technique
usually has a very short sra curves
which means you can stack a whole bunch
of them into a week and improve your
technique that much faster right
um
as a perfect example here how fucking
conceited am i on the perfect example a
fine example
is if you have a very technique heavy
sport it's almost never practiced very
little if you want to get good at tennis
do you practice tennis once a week what
the fuck nobody does that you practice
at gee whiz you know at least three or
four times a week maybe more like five
or six or even nine or ten you do two a
days because there's a lot of
opportunities to improve your technique
and your body recovers from technical
work really fast and there's another
opportunity to improve your technique
whereas you know a lot of people squat
heavy once a week and it's kind of like
okay your heavy squat technique is this
thing you practice once a week how much
better are you getting at it you could
be argued like not nearly as fast as you
could be if you just did more sessions
split throughout the week
and of course there's a direct
literature from actual studies a lot of
these are done on sort of weak
undergraduates that don't lift but some
of them are done on pretty strong people
and most studies show that
at least for some time
if you can recover from it
higher frequencies improve strength
faster and more than lower frequencies
on average right so there's something to
be said higher frequency is definitely
consideration that could make you better
now on the other hand there are costs of
higher frequencies and thus benefits to
lower frequencies first is joint and
connective tissue irritation it's a
fucking thing you can say i'm gonna
squat four days a week and then two
weeks in on day number seven or some
shit you're like my hips hurt and they
just never stop hurting and then you
stop lifting three weeks later i can't
fucking do this anymore it's especially
a problem in powerlifting for squats and
deadlifts both really seriously stress
the connective tissues in your lower
body and the musculature in your lower
body and thus if you're doing a crapload
of squat and deadlift sessions it's
fucking every time joint connective
tissues are getting pounded remember if
you're having a higher frequency that
means actually your performance per
session is higher than normal so now
it's more volume more load more
everything and all the fucking time no
breaks that can really start to add up
and one of the number one reasons why a
lot of the really biggest and strongest
lifters don't do ultra high frequencies
is because they can't survive it so you
have to be really really careful with
this one
something that sort of alluded to just
now you can do more volume and more load
if you have higher frequencies you can
generate an unbelievable amount of
systemic fatigue just doing that like if
you squat twice a week
you just at some point during those
workouts even if they're crazy you get
tired you go home so you can only impose
a certain amount of systemic fatigue for
the week with twice a week squatting
with four times a week squatting even if
each swat workout is you know 70 percent
as
fatigue as the other ones if you do the
math that's more systemic fatigue
nothing in this fucking world will crush
your ass like high frequency high
intensity strength training because
you're like oh my god i'm doing so much
volume and then three weeks later like
oh my god i'm doing so much volume i
would have never been able to do this if
i was training you know twice a week for
the same muscle group or movement
pattern but now that i'm training three
or four times i'm like gasping for air i
can't fucking survive this kind of shit
lastly
and this is very related to point number
two is you can get excessive
psychological fatigue just from the
frequency and the combined intensities
remember if you have a higher frequency
plan you get to go in more often and
you're fresh more often so you get to
try really fucking hard
the amount of trying hard all the
fucking time can catch up to you like
you may have currently in your program
if you're a low frequency person one
really heavy squat day per week one
really heavy deadlift day per week and
two heavy bench days so like you know
you there's a lot of down time there's a
lot of time to fucking go super hard and
there's a lot of time to be like i'm
good i have at least you know the rest
of today and tomorrow to take it easy
and then i got to start psyching up you
know drive to the gym get scared am i
really gonna survive this workout if you
do a high frequency plan oh my fucking
god
every day is fucking war and you're like
jesus christ just get me out of here i
have to get up for this all the fucking
time it's scary
especially in the same lift over and
over now you don't just have to go heavy
squats once a week you gotta do that
shit three times a week now monday heavy
squats you stare that fucking bar down
wednesday stare that bar down friday the
bar stares you down instead you're like
get me out of here so a lot of times
it's not just physical fatigue that's
imposed but psychological as well high
frequency programming
is like this incredible you know
bowl of soup that we can chirp sort of
get our spoon into and get stronger but
that soup can be fucking hot as hell and
it can be too much you're like fuck fuck
it's worse than algae i've ever made but
in any case it's this thing that has
great power
but i guess
you know let's say some kind of like
anti-matter super fusion reactor like
yeah it puts out a shitload of power but
you fuck something up it's a lot going
on there that can really fuck you up now
the good thing with high frequency
training it doesn't just surprise blow
up in your face but after a few weeks of
doing it you could have sort of uh
poured a bit too much in the glass than
than the size of the glass and his solar
only realized that like holy shit i
can't survive this so it could be a bad
thing and in fact if you're currently
doing a program that's ultra high
frequency and you're hitting a plateau
it might be precisely that you're doing
too much frequency that is the very
problem
now
when we say higher frequencies lower
frequencies what are kind of the average
frequencies even recommended her
practice by strength trainees where are
we starting out from this is what sort
of called normative frequencies
generally two to four overloading
sessions hard sessions per movement type
you know press or pull or squat per week
are the norm so for example you may do
three pressing sessions that are
overloading difficult not just technique
only four squatting sessions some some
of the natty usapl folks do this kind of
thing and then two pulling sessions one
of them is really overloading one's
maybe a little bit lighter but still
challenging right
so
if you're training a lift one or two
times per week in an overloading way
maybe you're on the lower end of what
you may be able to do frequency wise
and if you're training a lift like
you're benching four or five times a
week pretty hard then you're probably in
the higher end of what you might be able
to do
now lastly and here's where the plateau
busting comes along
if you are on the higher end of this
frequency range you're training three
four five times a week for the same kind
of lift and movement pattern
and you think you might be overdoing it
what is your best course of action right
your best course of action in my view is
to take one of those overloading
sessions let's say your friday session
okay you're still training hard monday
and wednesday in the bench friday used
to bench really heavy you turn it into a
technique only session which if you
remember from a couple lectures before
it's just sets of three to six reps at
like a three to six rpe so it's just
technique work it's barely heavy just uh
you know a few sets to get your
technique right and really really
practice live well but without really
overloading your tissues or your
psychology much at all
what this does
is it eases up the burden
and still allows you to maximize
technical development because if you
just remove that altogether maybe it
would have been a good idea but then you
know there's less technical work and
maybe that would have counterbalanced it
so you're still plateaued but for
another reason so the technical session
replacement of an overload accession is
not a terrible idea because it still
allows you to get that technique work in
but without adding to a fatigue burn and
maybe even reducing it somewhat so
i just gave that i was going to read the
example off the slide but i just gave
that example good enough right now
if that's still too much if that third
bench session is still too much even
though it's technique only you can just
do just one less frequency so forget
that session monday wednesday friday for
bench the friday you tried to do
technique only that didn't really seem
to help it still seems like too much
pressing you take friday out you go
monday thursday hard benching and then
friday nothing happens you rest instead
and all of a sudden
maybe you'll get some better results and
see how that goes and reevaluate down
the road if it's still too much pull
another session out and replace it with
a technique session and so on and so
forth to see where you get your best
results the opposite thing occurs if
you're on the lower end you think you're
under doing it let's say you know oh
what's the example here you're squatting
hard two times per week
but you think oh man you know i think i
could benefit from a higher frequency um
what you do is you add a technique only
session first just a technique only
session and you see how that goes
because a lot of the benefits of prior
frequency is the technique improvement
which you can actually within just a few
weeks should make you better at the lift
so what you do is let's say you're
currently squatting monday thursday
relatively hard you go to squatting hard
monday and wednesday and then friday you
used to not squat at all you throw in a
technique-only squatting session right
so of three to six reps with a three to
six rp super easy super good technique
stuff
and then just boost your technical
development without adding much if any
fatigue because light exercise is
actually shown to reduce fatigue but
this is sort of not that light probably
adds no fatigue at all on average maybe
just a little bit
and if that goes well and you improve
that's awesome but if you're improving
and you're also like man honestly i'm
recovering super well i think i can do
three hard sessions go ahead and try
that but i would always try adding the
technique only sessions first because
i'll tell you this
if
you're feeling really challenged and you
added that technique session and and
you're still not gaining any sort of
ability
i don't think the answer is to take that
technique session and make it a super
hard one because you're already feeling
challenged so the only way you do this
try that technique session if it boosts
your abilities great i would just keep
it in for a while and change nothing and
then if you hit another plateau you have
to ask yourself do i feel sufficiently
challenged can i do more frequency uh
will my joints handle it so on and so
forth you probably have a good inkling
of an idea of whether or not that's the
case
if you think yeah yeah i'll try more
frequency great do it up take that
session and turn it from a technique
session into an overloading session but
if you think man fuck
uh there's no way i can do more don't do
anything stupid like squatting three or
four times a week and getting yourself
killed or at the very least weaker which
is to say the same thing metaphorically
folks i think we have one more video
left in the series i'm gonna sign myself
out and go do nothing i'll be scaring a
wall for the next uh whole week until i
come back to you in a week to do this
next video see you then
you
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