Training Muscles twice a week?

[MMA Max]

Have not seen it around the forums but I was wondering what everyone's take was on this. There is a guy at the gym that swears that in order to get his muscle to grow he works out his body parts twice a week

Monday - Chest/Shoulders/Triceps
Tuesday - Back/Biceps/Abs
Weds - Legs/Calves/Cardio
Thursday - Chest/Shoulders/Triceps
Fridays - Back/Biceps/Legs/Abs

Anyone try this?

[Trevor Lane]

C&P advocates even more, 7 days a week if it's done right. Especially with Squats.

[Grim83]

not much into splits, but i do tend to hit everything 2-3x a week

[glwanabe]

2x, even 3x a week right now. I've done programs were I have hit muscles 4x a week as well. 4x aa week was an Oly lifting program, and that is something very different from pwr, and bodybuilding lifting. So it's not really fair to compare them.

This is the oly program I was working on.

Olympic Weightlifting Primer

I've been wanting to go through this program, and tailor it a little. Nothing drastic, just some very simple changes. I would include some benchng in the program, as well as rowing.

I really suggest people read the Casey Butt thread in the bodybuilding section. There is a lot of information in that thread. It is well worth your time to digest what he is saying.

This is one post from that thread of an interview that BTB did. This is very good info.

http://muscleandbrawn.com/forums/13690-post13.html

I think if you spend some time to read this material, you will come away with a good knowledge base about intensity, and frequency.

I do think that C&P is worth learning about, as well as Stuart McRobert. They are both on opposite ends of the pendulum. I find casey to be a bit more centered, and he sorta supports both of the other two given the right circumstances.

[BendtheBar]

I made most of my muscle gains on twice a week training. This style of training is actually (generally) more beneficially for naturals if they are not trying to do volume training on each day.

Think of it like this...if you do 10 sets once a week for chest...you can train that same volume, but split it into something like 5 sets on 2 days, or 3 sets on 3 days.

Muscle recovery is about 48 to 72 hours. You just have to be careful not to pound your joints/CNS into oblivion by doing too much on a given day.

Prior to the Joe Weider/steroid era, most naturals trained bodyparts multiple times per week. If you look close, this is a topic that we talk about quite a bit on the forum.

I would also add that many powerlifters train each bodypart twice a week. Westside utilizes this protocol.

One caveat is that you can't jump into the deep end with this style of training. It's better to start slow and add in volume then it is to hammer the crap out of your body right out of the gate.

[Grip-N-Rip]

Originally Posted by MMA Max

Have not seen it around the forums but I was wondering what everyone's take was on this. There is a guy at the gym that swears that in order to get his muscle to grow he works out his body parts twice a week

Monday - Chest/Shoulders/Triceps
Tuesday - Back/Biceps/Abs
Weds - Legs/Calves/Cardio
Thursday - Chest/Shoulders/Triceps
Fridays - Back/Biceps/Legs/Abs

Anyone try this?

Overtraining. You dont grow in the gym.

[BendtheBar]

Originally Posted by Grip-N-Rip

Overtraining. You dont grow in the gym.

I would agree that the particular program stated is a bit much. It's a classic Arnold style approach. If you want to train multiple times per week, you can either do a MWF 3-day fullbody, or a 4-day-per-week A/B split.

Trying to train more then this as a natural is dangerous territory.

I know some guys will say you can do more, and possibly you could, but again you don't start out sprinting with fullbody approaches. You start by crawling. I learned this reality all to well.

[CallmeKing]

I do it.

[MMA Max]

I was thinking about training biceps two times a week..I thought about chest but I pound the crap out of it and it stays sore from monday till thursday friday sometimes, However, I did do legs three times this week

[BendtheBar]

Originally Posted by MMA Max

I was thinking about training biceps two times a week..I thought about chest but I pound the crap out of it and it stays sore from monday till thursday friday sometimes, However, I did do legs three times this week

It's all about volume. You could drop the chest volume in half and could probably do another workout 3 to 4 days later.

Weight training is usually looked at through the lens of volume, intensity and frequency. If you increase the volume, you have to increase the frequency between workouts. If you decrease the volume, you can increase the frequency. If you decrease weight (intensity), you can increase the frequency.

Of course, these are generalizations but they hold quite a bit of water. Some people recover better - especially when they're younger - so they can train more frequently. And some people can handle more volume on some bodyparts as opposed to others.

If you do add a second bicep day, cut the volume down to test the waters.