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ONCE OR TWICE A WEEK BODY PART TRAINING FOR OPTIMAL GROWTH?
I recently received an e-mail stating that ?99 percent of all bodybuilders are training wrong!? I clicked on the link and the article made some interesting points, which made me really think: ?What is the optimal amount of times a week to train each body part?? The article claimed that whole-body workouts were the lost key for muscle growth. The article stated that when the Weider family introduced split-system training (i.e., upper body one day, lower body the next day), this was the birth of overtraining for bodybuilders.
Weider athletes such as Schwarzenegger and Sergio Olivia were known to perform 30 to 40 sets per body part. The Weider System was the exact opposite of the Arthur Jones training system, which advocated High-Intensity Training acronym HIT. Jones believed that short, intense workouts provided a superior return to the athlete than what was then the standard weight-training workout, one that was long and involved the lifting of a high volume of weights. He specified 16 different Nautilus machine exercises, with 1 set of each exercise performed to failure (where the athlete could no longer perform the exercise), three times per week.
Jones thought that bodybuilders trained with too many sets; he thought the high volume used by bodybuilders creates such a drain on the central nervous system that this inhibits them from training any sooner than a week or so later. Proponents of the Arthur Jones training system advocate the whole-body training routines are superior because:
? A full-body workout recruits more motor units or muscle groups per workout than split training.
? Full-body workouts elicit greater increase in testosterone and GH than split routines.
? Each body part is trained more often and yields a greater anabolic effect.
? A body part is usually recovered within 48 hours; therefore, not training that muscle again within 48 hours is wasted time off.
? Protein synthesis rates for muscles can be increased for 48 hours after a muscle is trained and then starts to drop.
Advocates of multiple training sessions per body part, such as twice a week compared to once per week, claim that it takes advantage of the anabolic effects of resistance exercise. The anabolic effects of resistance exercise are elevated rates of protein synthesis in the muscle, which lasts about 48 hours. Then, it stops and everything is back to normal. If you go on to wait an entire week before training again, you simply won't grow as fast as you could. Based on this premise, it seems that once-a-week training is not optimal for muscle growth, but before a bodybuilder decides to try to train more, a bodybuilder needs to ask, ?Have I recovered from my previous workout??
Training Frequency Is Recovery Dependent
Traditionally, I have trained one body part per week; however, a training partner and I decided to try the old-school training and try the whole-body, three-day training routine. After a few weeks, the pounds started dropping while my training partner?s lifts kept going up. We were doing the exact same routine; he was getting stronger and I was overtraining. What the hell was going on? It made me realize how different our genetic recovery capacity was; additionally, he is 10 years younger than me.
Another example of superb recovery capacity was an interview with ?World?s Strongest Man? competitior Mariusz Pudzianowski; he does two workouts a day, one is strongman training and one is in the weight room. His workouts consist of back squats one day, deadlifts the next day, front squats the next day. He trains his shoulders by doing behind-the-neck jerks, where he works on speed and explosiveness, three times a week. He starts with push jerks, working up to 405 for a very easy and fast 2 reps. He then squats high bar, Olympic style, up to 2 easy, quick sets of 585 for 3 reps. Guys who have trained with him say that his work capacity and recovery ability are totally out of this world. They also commented that most strongmen would not be able to train in this fashion without overtraining. Each person recuperates at different rates from workouts differently. Some people are blessed with great genetic potential for recovery, while others need longer.
I recently received an e-mail stating that ?99 percent of all bodybuilders are training wrong!? I clicked on the link and the article made some interesting points, which made me really think: ?What is the optimal amount of times a week to train each body part?? The article claimed that whole-body workouts were the lost key for muscle growth. The article stated that when the Weider family introduced split-system training (i.e., upper body one day, lower body the next day), this was the birth of overtraining for bodybuilders.
Weider athletes such as Schwarzenegger and Sergio Olivia were known to perform 30 to 40 sets per body part. The Weider System was the exact opposite of the Arthur Jones training system, which advocated High-Intensity Training acronym HIT. Jones believed that short, intense workouts provided a superior return to the athlete than what was then the standard weight-training workout, one that was long and involved the lifting of a high volume of weights. He specified 16 different Nautilus machine exercises, with 1 set of each exercise performed to failure (where the athlete could no longer perform the exercise), three times per week.
Jones thought that bodybuilders trained with too many sets; he thought the high volume used by bodybuilders creates such a drain on the central nervous system that this inhibits them from training any sooner than a week or so later. Proponents of the Arthur Jones training system advocate the whole-body training routines are superior because:
? A full-body workout recruits more motor units or muscle groups per workout than split training.
? Full-body workouts elicit greater increase in testosterone and GH than split routines.
? Each body part is trained more often and yields a greater anabolic effect.
? A body part is usually recovered within 48 hours; therefore, not training that muscle again within 48 hours is wasted time off.
? Protein synthesis rates for muscles can be increased for 48 hours after a muscle is trained and then starts to drop.
Advocates of multiple training sessions per body part, such as twice a week compared to once per week, claim that it takes advantage of the anabolic effects of resistance exercise. The anabolic effects of resistance exercise are elevated rates of protein synthesis in the muscle, which lasts about 48 hours. Then, it stops and everything is back to normal. If you go on to wait an entire week before training again, you simply won't grow as fast as you could. Based on this premise, it seems that once-a-week training is not optimal for muscle growth, but before a bodybuilder decides to try to train more, a bodybuilder needs to ask, ?Have I recovered from my previous workout??
Training Frequency Is Recovery Dependent
Traditionally, I have trained one body part per week; however, a training partner and I decided to try the old-school training and try the whole-body, three-day training routine. After a few weeks, the pounds started dropping while my training partner?s lifts kept going up. We were doing the exact same routine; he was getting stronger and I was overtraining. What the hell was going on? It made me realize how different our genetic recovery capacity was; additionally, he is 10 years younger than me.
Another example of superb recovery capacity was an interview with ?World?s Strongest Man? competitior Mariusz Pudzianowski; he does two workouts a day, one is strongman training and one is in the weight room. His workouts consist of back squats one day, deadlifts the next day, front squats the next day. He trains his shoulders by doing behind-the-neck jerks, where he works on speed and explosiveness, three times a week. He starts with push jerks, working up to 405 for a very easy and fast 2 reps. He then squats high bar, Olympic style, up to 2 easy, quick sets of 585 for 3 reps. Guys who have trained with him say that his work capacity and recovery ability are totally out of this world. They also commented that most strongmen would not be able to train in this fashion without overtraining. Each person recuperates at different rates from workouts differently. Some people are blessed with great genetic potential for recovery, while others need longer.
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