Factors that determine Training Frequency
This depends on your:
🌟Goals
🌟Age
🌟Skill level
🌟Training status
These all play a role in determining how often you should strength train to build muscle.
Training Frequency for Beginners & Advanced
While advanced lifters may benefit from higher training frequencies, beginners can still achieve results with less frequent training. However, there are two crucial principles that can aid in muscle growth even if you only train a specific body part once per week. Keep reading to uncover what it is.
For most people, especially beginners, training full-body 2-3 times per week is an adequate stimulus for muscle growth. This means you are training each body part or muscle, 2-3 times per week. This is because beginners can benefit from the repeated bout effect, where the body quickly adapts to new stressors, resulting in rapid gains in strength and muscle size.
However, as lifters become more experienced, their ability to recover and adapt to training stress improves. This means a full-body routine 2-3 times per week will not provide adequate training stimulus to promote muscle growth because of two crucial factors.
Solutions – Weekly Split Routines Sample
The solution is split-body part training. Below are just 2 examples of how this can be organized over 7 days.
#Upper body/Lower body
An Upper/Lower Body split which involves training on 2 consecutive days, followed by 1 or 2 days of rest, and then repeating the cycle for a total of 4 days per week.
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun | |
| Body parts A | Upper | Lower | Rest | Upper | Lower | Rest | Rest |
| Body parts B | Upper | Lower | Rest | Rest | Upper | Lower | Rest |
#Push/Pull/Leg (PPL)
Requires 6 training days per week.
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun | |
| Movement | Push | Pull | Leg | Rest | Push | Pull | Leg |
As an intermediate to advanced lifter, it will become harder to stimulate muscle growth. So it is necessary to switch to a training routine that incorporates a combination of full-body and body-split exercises or solely body-split exercises.
Two Crucial Principles to stimulate muscle growth
Progressive Overload
This is done by progressively increasing the weight, reps, sets, or intensity of an exercise as the body adapts to the current level of stress and manipulating.
Weekly Training Volume per Body-Part
6-18 sets per body-part per week can be done in one training session or spread out over the course of a week and produce similar muscle growth.
Overall, the frequency of weight lifting to build muscle varies depending on individual factors and goals. However, consistency, proper nutrition and recovery, total weekly training volume and progressive overload are essential for muscle growth.
