Training more than 4 days a week
 

I've been reading and come to the conclusion that there is little reason for the average person to lift weights more than 4 times per week.

Last night my brother came home from college and he started talking about lifting 6 days a week during the summer. We had a debate about quantity versus quality and he thinks I'm wrong. To prove me wrong he now says he's going to do a double split and train twelve times a week resting only on sunday.

I bet him that I could make just as good of gains lifting only two days a week. Now that I opened my mouth I'm a bit nervous but am going to give it a try.

This will be a great experiment. Eager to see what happens.

LtL

Interesting situation. I'll be curious if his 12 training sessions start to get lighter and lighter, or start to decrease to 10, 8, etc.

I tried a split like that once back in college when I had nothing else to do. I lasted 2 days.

I don't know, Faz and BtB seem to be doing pretty well on their training schedules which have them training most days. But then again twice or three times a week is also a proven method. Routine design and effort will be the determining factor of it's success. Good luck to you, a little competition is a great motivator.

Haha, I like this! You were debating 6 days a week training and to prove your wrong he's going to train 12 times a week!!!

Offroad is right, Btb and I have done well with frequent lifting and yes 12 times a week training for a few months was manageable.

But, I think unless he is very in-tune with his body he will struggle. I employed a good deal of cycling intensity, exercises and variations in what ended up being a relatively complex looking cycle to manage my workload. I also built up to this workload over the course of around 3 years.

I'm looking forward to hearing his results!

Training frequently is freaking awesome, you don't get better at something by doing less. Every day you come to the gym it's a +, every day you don't come it's a -.

Bodybuilding is a different kettle of fish from what I'm doing, but hitting everything at least twice a week worked for me when I was at that stage of my life.

He will have to set up the progression with a lot of thought he wont go far twice a day banging out whatever reps for whatever sets lol

Depends upon the training level of the lifter. A novice is going to make gains on just about any training schedule. 2 days may have some good results if your intensity and progression are appropriate. 6 days a week is possible as well, but I pity your brother, because I tried it for about a month in college and couldn't keep up the intensity. keep us posted on the progress both of you respectively make.