Off-Topic How much or how little should you train ?

[JPCross]

There are a lot of factors. What's the primary goal - strength, hypertrophy, speed (anaerobic), endurance (aerobic)?

What I have found works best for me is one to two truly hard sessions per week with as much lower intensity volume as I can possibly fit in while still recovering.

 

[Steve Freides]

I was just wondering about how to know if your training too much, or a tiny bit too much, and that you could actually get better results if you trained less.

Those are really two different questions.

You know if you're training too much when you don't recover well.

Knowing about better results - that's the Holy Grail, finding what works best for you. Unfortunately, what works best for you won't always be the same and you'll need to vary it in more ways than just training more or training less.

-S-

 

[North Coast Miller]

Hi.

So I read an article in a magazine about a professional fitness-bodybuilder who reduced his training volume and training frequency and thereby became bigger and stronger according to himself. He is seemingly the best in his field in my country.

I was just curious about this idea for the rest of us. Many of us are training according to anti-glycolytic principles, but still, more volume is always more demanding than less volume (all else being equal). I was just wondering about how to know if your training too much, or a tiny bit too much, and that you could actually get better results if you trained less.

I am the kind of person who would like to train every day, but now I think that I might have gotten better results if I had tried to restrain myself.
I am sometimes wondering how many off-days I should have to get optimal results.

Have other people experimented with training less and achieved better results ?
Or maybe the opposite.


Anders

To me, the only way to tell is to stop training and see how many days it takes to feel completely relaxed. If it takes 2 days I'm in the zone. If it takes 4, I'm overtraining. If it takes a day, I'm phoning it in.

You can also experiment a bit. I made my best mass gains training 1/2 of what I did when I was younger.

 

[Anna C]

I think people should aim to do the following, in this order:

1. Meet the physical activity guidelines - for evidence-based health benefits. Basically 150/300 min/wk of cardio and 2x/wk strength.
2. Get stronger - learn how to strength train, run strength building programs to increase strength
3. Improve V02max - or overall cardio health/capacity
4. Move well - variety of movement patterns, mobility, symmetry, balance, athletic skill
5. Engage in something challenging and/or fun that keeps them doing 1, 2, 3, and 4

Usually for beginners, just meeting 1 (the physical activity guidelines) will improve 2, 3, and 4... but MUCH more improvement beyond that basic healthy activity baseline is possible, with focused effort. So moving beyond baseline, the order of 2, 3, and 4 may vary depending on their starting point and to what extent each element is holding them back from advancing in the others. 5 can really help to build fitness into a lifestyle, engage with others, drive the mental engagement side of things, and sustain motivation and reward to continue.

 

[bluejeff]

The more intensely you train, the less you should train.

The less intensely you train, the more you should train.

If you are not seeing results, you need to determine if it is a frequency problem or an intensity problem.

+1

As little as needed to achieve the goal, not more than your ability to recover

+1

As much as we all like our variety of programs around here, the above four statements summarize everything other than exercise selection and diet, and could probably be extrapolated to those as well.

I like training. So I train often. If I notice my sets getting harder throughout the week, or from week to week, I know I am going too hard, doing too much, or not recovering well enough.

The last point is worth expanding on. Sometimes you might be training too hard, too often, etc, and sometimes you just aren't eating as well as you think, or recovering/sleeping as well as you think. I know that stress impacts my ability to train and recover, and so I know that I have to manage my stress-coping strategies. For me, that means I drink more beer, which is ultimately counterproductive to training goals. I think some people don't consider how much chronic stress impacts them.

If you would like to see how changing things affects you, only change one thing at a time, and give yourself at least a week or two to see how it affects things.

 

[Luis T. Gonzalez]

I know of a trainer who advocates once a week training and have seen positive feedback from this person's trainees. But it is a style of training that is very high intensity.

Whether OP should also train like that depends on quite few factors as already mentioned by others on this thread.

I guess if I was a doctor or someone working 72 or more hours a week who is on my feet every day and only has one day, then that would be awesome. I can kill it today and I will be back next week.

 

[LukeV]

I’m a huge believer in less is more for your Regular Joe who’s never going to win Mr Olympia anyway. And I’ve known many people, my wife included, who looked and felt great on one solid-ish resistance training workout weekly. In my case, I’ve done a couple of long rehab stints on super slow, single set, once weekly training and my sense, I don’t have actual measurements, is that I certainly didn’t lose muscle and most probably put some on. A once weekly workout has my vote as the minimum for effective strength/hypertrophy in otherwise active people

 

[GovernorSilver]

I guess if I was a doctor or someone working 72 or more hours a week who is on my feet every day and only has one day, then that would be awesome. I can kill it today and I will be back next week.

Sure, several clients mentioned once a week training as a reason they became his clients.

Interview by Matt Schifferle (Red Delta Project)

As an example of this style of training:
Pike Pushup with accommodating resistance

I hurt myself attempting to train pike pushups this way by ramping up the load too quickly. It's really on you to manage the load (accommodating resistance) appropriately - you want enough to generate results, but if you can't resist the temptation to increase the load too much, you can hurt yourself.