Training Frequency

Is it better to do more sessions, or does it not matter as long as you put in the same amount of total work?

This is a recent question I had from a client, and I thought it was such a great question that I’d do a video on it.

Watch video here:

 Let me preface this article by saying the main thing you need to consider is adherence. Are you personally more likely to adhere to, say, two or three a week sessions or four to five sessions? This needs to be the main deciding factor. I mean, what’ll facilitate more volume (total work/sets), seven sessions a week for one month or three sessions a week for one year? That’s right, the latter. 

That said, if you can increase your training frequency, hit more sessions and do that consistently, you may benefit from it. 

Training Volume

The main benefit of training more frequently is it generally facilitates more volume. For most people, we’re looking for 10-30 hard-working sets on each muscle group each week. Ten sets per muscle group per week is easily manageable training twice a week, but if someone needs more volume. Maybe they’ve been training for a while or simply want to optimise things as much as possible. Then, they’d perhaps consider getting in more sessions to push closer to the 20 sets per muscle group or even more. That said, pushing beyond 20 hard-working sets per muscle group is unnecessary for most lifters. 

Fewer Wasted Sets

Another consideration and benefit to higher frequency training is fewer wasted sets per session. If we look at this graph that I pulled from an in-house meta-analysis done by James Krieger that reviewed the data of 9 separate studies, looking at the impact of sets per muscle group per session on muscle building. You can see that the gains continue to rise up to 6 sets per muscle group, but beyond, we get hit with a pretty hard plateau. Some will benefit from 8 sets per muscle group, but few will reap the benefits beyond this. This means if you were aiming for higher volumes, then you’re best doing more sessions, say four or five, to get the volume in without risking diminishing returns or wasted sets.

Higher Quality Reps

Similarly, if you’re trying to squeeze a lot of volume into a session, as you only have one or two sessions to get that volume in, then the quality of those reps will take a hit. Once you’re on your third leg exercise, which is like your 9th set, you’re no longer banging out quality lunges with a good weight and full range of motion. Whereas if you spread that volume out over more sessions, then there’s less fatigue, you’re able to work with more weight, bang out more reps, with more range of motion. And more reps with more weight equals a higher total volume, which is weight x reps x sets. And when spreading the volume out over more sessions, those sessions get to be shorter, which is a nice touch. 

More Frequent Spikes in Muscle Protein Synthesis

More sessions also result in more frequent spikes in muscle protein synthesis – more frequent spikes in muscle development. This won’t account for much when volume is matched, and people exaggerate the benefits of this, so I won’t linger on this point, but it’s worth mentioning.

RBE (Repeated Bout Effect)

I’d also like to touch on RBE (repeated bout effect), which is where your body gets used to the repeated stimulus and becomes conditioned to the training frequency. Some people feel they need a week to recover from their session, but they don’t, especially when you manage volume correctly and get used to high-frequency training. 

Habits and Routine

I was going to leave this there, but I have one more point to add – another benefit to high-frequency training is that regular training much more quickly becomes a habit. When people train once per week, the training is more of a thing they try to squeeze into the week, as opposed to being part of their routine. When you train regularly, it becomes normal and habitual – you don’t have to think about it or psych yourself up – you just get it done. That said, if you can only pump iron once or twice per week, you can still exercise regularly by filling the gaps with walking or running. This is something I’d recommend to make regular exercise habitual. 

Summary

So, as you can see, training more frequently does have benefits. When you match for volume in a study, you won’t see much benefits to higher frequency training. But in the real world, when you train more frequently, you do get in more volume, and when we review the research, we can see an almost dose-response effect with volume – more volume equaling more gains! Now, if you’re one of my clients reading this and only train twice per week, remember that that’s fine, as that is the amount that can fit into your lifestyle and routine. What I’ve done is ensure that there is a good amount of volume in those sessions to maximise your results. Remember that the best plan is the one you can adhere to!