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What is the maximum time that could wisely be spent strength training?

babyhauler said:
Assuming a person hired the best Strongfirst trainer and was ready to dedicate themself entirely to strength training. Physical training and healthy food only, no steroids or anything like them. Their goal is to become the strongest person in the world, or become as strong as they possibly can.

How many hours would they actually spend in the gym? How many days a week would they go?
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Simple Anwser

You are looking for a simple answer to something that is more complex.

The majority of individual want a very simple answers like Yes or No or they want the answer to be no more than one sentence.

It remind me of individual who ask me how to gain weight and want it in one sentence. My reply is, "Eat more", which does not really provide you with any real information.

A great example of this is...

Simply Strong

Adding muscle

I guess what I’m looking for is a body building program! I’ve been told by my coaches that I need to add 5kg of muscle over the next 6 months. Usually I have access to a gym but for the next 6 months I wont making the timing not great. I do have the following equipment at home… 2 x 24kg...
www.strongfirst.com

Based in the information that he provide, his "Coach" told him that he need to gain 5 kg but didn't provide him with any coaching information on to do it.

The simples answer is...

Antti said:
Pavel has often quoted Zatsiorsky for the best strength training maxim: "do as much as possible as fresh as possible as often as possible".
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The Amount of Work Performed in Training

The amount of work performed in training is dependent on the type of training being performed.

Let's take Maximum Strength Training as an example. In a 60 minute Maximum Strength Training, perhaps 10 minutes of training is performed.

That due to fact that individual in a Maximum Strength Training need to take 3 minutes or longer between Sets of 1-2 Repetition, no more than 5 Repetition in a Set that are performed in less than 30 seconds.

With that in mind, Maximum Strength, Power and Speed Training Set are optimize when the time is limted to around 10 seconds per set.

Then reason for this has to do the Fast Twitch Muscle Fiber's use of the Phosphagen Energy System. Information on this has previously be posted on it.

Pavel Tsatsouline on GTG, optimal rep count and rest duration for strength

Pavel 's stated that for Maximum Stregth Training, Rest Periods of 5-15 minutes beween Set need to be taken.

Let's say an individual performed 12 Set (60 minutes divided by 5 Minute Rest Between Set) in a hour.

If those Strength Sets took 30 Seconds (whidh they rarely do) that would mean, 12 Sets X 30 Per Set = 360 Seconds: 6 minutes of the hour in which work was performed.

This approach of Long Rest Periods is extremely effective. However, it limits the number or Sets and Exercise than are performed.

The Workout Intensity

This another factor that limits the amount of time spent in a training session.

Boris Bachmann said:
Are you counting recovery methods as "gym time"?
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Great Point

Ironically, this is what most individual do. The count the time spent in the gym as training time rather than counting the amount of total amount of time spend in performing a Training Set.

Vince Giornda
As Gironda, one of the greatest Bodybuilding Coaches, stated...

"You can hard or long but not both."
There is an Inverse Relationship between Intensity and time...

When Intensity goes up, Time goes down, Volume drops.

When Time goes up, Intensity goes down; with lifters perform more Volume.

While Volume and Intensity need ensure progress, some individual respond better to Higher Intensity with Low to Moderate Volume.

Others respond better to more Volume and Lower Intensity.

There are addional factors that come into play , as well. Let stop here.
 
babyhauler said:
Assuming a person hired the best Strongfirst trainer and was ready to dedicate themself entirely to strength training. Physical training and healthy food only, no steroids or anything like them. Their goal is to become the strongest person in the world, or become as strong as they possibly can.

How many hours would they actually spend in the gym? How many days a week would they go?

I'm asking as a newbie because it seems like once you have done several of the heavy lifts, you have to rest, right? Or is there more and more strength training you can do?
Click to expand...

Professional Olympic weightlifters often train 2 times a day, 5 days a week, and another half day on Saturday.

Some of them aren't on PEDs.
 
babyhauler said:
Assuming a person hired the best Strongfirst trainer and was ready to dedicate themself entirely to strength training. Physical training and healthy food only, no steroids or anything like them. Their goal is to become the strongest person in the world, or become as strong as they possibly can.

How many hours would they actually spend in the gym? How many days a week would they go?

I'm asking as a newbie because it seems like once you have done several of the heavy lifts, you have to rest, right? Or is there more and more strength training you can do?
Click to expand...
I like Kenny Croxdale's point about Zaitorski. GTG in your chosen lifts across the day, alternated as you maintain other lifts or activities, could be two sets every 15 minutes that leave you pretty fresh.

Does being dedicated entirely to strength training also include great wealth? I presume so because this leaves no time away from work. Aside from your coach(es) it also gives you...

...A medical concierge at home to attend to even the slightest problem. Is a blister starting? The doc says to use this moisturizer at these exact times in the day.
...An on-site culinary team so your chefs can match the blood tests your doctors are constantly taking to optimize recovery through nutrition.
...An on-site massage therapy team and meditation/hypnosis team to ensure physical and mental recovery.
...a sleep coach to teach you how to achieve optimized polyphasic sleep, which means 30 minute naps every four hours for full restoration.

So if you do GTG for two exercises that are easily done and keep you fresh every 15 minutes, as Pavel recommended in The Naked Warrior, consider every four hour block of your life:
30 minutes of sleep
14 GTG sessions (or 28 total sets for two exercises, provided you are only going to do GTG for the two)
plenty of time between GTG to attend to other matters, including many meals so small they are easily eaten and digested in the low-stress GTG environment.

In a 24 hour day that gives you a total of 168 sets that leave your body completely fresh and rested. Rotate exercises as needed and that can be a heck of a lot of work without being worn down. If you rotate exercises every two weeks, consider what 2352 sets could do.

Or cut it down to a quarter of this if you eat and sleep like a normal person and that is still a lot of sets. The social life might suffer, but that wasn't the goal. Doing the most to get strong was the goal.

If you were totally dedicated and had the money you could do a lot.
 
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GreenSoup said:
I like Kenny Croxdale's point about Zaitorski. GTG in your chosen lifts across the day, alternated as you maintain other lifts or activities, could be two sets every 15 minutes that leave you pretty fresh.

Does being dedicated entirely to strength training also include great wealth? I presume so because this leaves no time away from work. Aside from your coach(es) it also gives you...

...A medical concierge at home to attend to even the slightest problem. Is a blister starting? The doc says to use this moisturizer at these exact times in the day.
...An on-site culinary team so your chefs can match the blood tests your doctors are constantly taking to optimize recovery through nutrition.
...An on-site massage therapy team and meditation/hypnosis team to ensure physical and mental recovery.
...a sleep coach to teach you how to achieve optimized polyphasic sleep, which means 30 minute naps every four hours for full restoration.

So if you do GTG for two exercises that are easily done and keep you fresh every 15 minutes, as Pavel recommended in The Naked Warrior, consider every four hour block of your life:
30 minutes of sleep
14 GTG sessions (or 28 total sets for two exercises, provided you are only going to do GTG for the two)
plenty of time between GTG to attend to other matters, including many meals so small they are easily eaten and digested in the low-stress GTG environment.

In a 24 hour day that gives you a total of 168 sets that leave your body completely fresh and rested. Rotate exercises as needed and that can be a heck of a lot of work without being worn down. If you rotate exercises every two weeks, consider what 2352 sets could do.

Or cut it down to a quarter of this if you eat and sleep like a normal person and that is still a lot of sets. The social life might suffer, but that wasn't the goal. Doing the most to get strong was the goal.

If you were totally dedicated and had the money you could do a lot.
Click to expand...

I laughed so hard I spewed wine out my nose.
 
babyhauler said:
Assuming a person hired the best Strongfirst trainer and was ready to dedicate themself entirely to strength training. Physical training and healthy food only, no steroids or anything like them. Their goal is to become the strongest person in the world, or become as strong as they possibly can.

How many hours would they actually spend in the gym? How many days a week would they go?

I'm asking as a newbie because it seems like once you have done several of the heavy lifts, you have to rest, right? Or is there more and more strength training you can do?
Click to expand...
The maximum time I could wisely spend strength training would be roughly the least amount of work I could get away with, while keeping aligned with my goals.
 
babyhauler said:
Assuming a person hired the best Strongfirst trainer and was ready to dedicate themself entirely to strength training. Physical training and healthy food only, no steroids or anything like them. Their goal is to become the strongest person in the world, or become as strong as they possibly can.

How many hours would they actually spend in the gym? How many days a week would they go?
Click to expand...
It's been the job of some people to be professional strength athletes. They would be your model here. You don't need theory, you have their practice.

You might ask how their training would change if they removed the drugs, but I'd start with what they do.

Then ask if becoming as strong as possible in your case would also allow becoming as big as possible. The strongest strength athletes in the world are also the biggest.

Then answer the question of how long you needed to be at your strongest for. Being ever-ready would be different than peaking for a couple of competitions a year.

I think the answer would be training an average of twice a day for a 2-3 hours each session.

-S-
 
it's not unheard of for Olympic lifters to do 2 sessions per day 60-90 minutes each 4-6 days per week. Some routines are all day events, single rep and then rest for 30-60 minutes. And it's not just the hours, it's also the intensity they go at. There are no missed days. And there are no missed reps.

Examples:
Klokov would train 8-10 hours per week. But then he'd spend a lot of time actively recovering and eating.
Other sports have different requirements. Judoka can easily spend 25 hours per week training not counting their recovery time.

To get to their level, it's a full time job. You do nothing but train, eat, sleep, and actively recover.
 
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