The famous question of how many workouts is best for building muscle, gaining strength and straight up getting jacked is a common question.
The answer will vary according to your lifestyle, work and your age / training experience.
I've trained as few as 2 x week and up to 6 x week and gotten great results from both.
Here are my thoughts more in depth...
[youtube width="640" height="360"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQeab3_QQzM[/youtube]
On a further note, if you need to focus on building muscle and you feel recovery is an issue, train with an upper body and lower body split but also pay critical attention to nutrition and sleep.
When you eat properly and rest enough your gains in size and strength will skyrocket big time.
These are 2 BIG difference makers that most don't want to pay attention to yet they will make a HUGE impact in your gains.
What has worked best for you in terms of workouts that maximize your strength and muscle gains?
Questions for me on rest / recovery / nutrition for strength and size gains? Drop em' below and if I get enough interest I will create a video and next blog post.
Live The Code,
--Z--
14 Responses
Brute force strength. Stones, tires, farmers, sandbag etc.
Powerlifts: deadlifts, squats.
I train high intensity complexes, with circuit accessories three days per week (M,W,Fr). On Tuesday and Thursday I will do brute force and bodyweight. Pending on how I feel with brute force/bodyweight it could be high weight shorter distance, or high weight longer distance. Bodyweight will vary sets to reps, or adding weights or amount of exercises. Sometimes just two, other times five or six. Depends on how I feel. Either way I push hard.
Rest, but stay active during the day. Meaning sleep at night. A good six to eight. Makes a world of difference. Zach you got nailed a lot with sickness last year. Flu twice?! Body heals when you sleep so catch those ZZZZ’s!
Nutrition! Find what works for you. When you pay attention to how your body responds you can make it do anything.
Hey Undergrounders,
as I’m more into athleticism than a strict strenght guy, I train as follows:
Strenth Days: Mo, We, Fr
usually that is a full body complex. Mostly bodyweight combined with KBs, sandbags, stones, etc. One day of the week I do heavy stuff like deadlifts, squats but never max because of back & knee issues.
Endurance Days: Tu, Th
Usually throw in some yoga, heavy stretching and recovery work. Combine running, biking with sprints, bodyweight & athletic movements.
On weekends I stay active with the family. If I feel good and have time I throw in a fun session. This can be on playgrounds, outside or in the garage – just doing stuff outside the box.
So tons of BW, less heavy strength training. Just the way I feel good about it. I try to get in my sleep which often is an issue. I definetly watch my diet. No sugar, no milk, as little wheat & starch as possible, lots of fruits and veggies. Tons of water. I learned that drinking water is directly correlated how healthy I’m feeling.
If you aren’t training for anything in particular it really doesn’t matter how often you train, in what kind of schedule. The most important thing is that you move at all. The body will adapt to the schedule accordingly. Taking a complete week off is as healthy and beneficial as overtraining sometimes. Just listen to your body.
Thats it.
Cheers
One more thing:
What you train for is what you will get. Simple but often neglected (dont know why that is).
So if you want to excel in running – you got to run, man!
If you want strength to be your numero uno – lift heavy, baby!
If you are into athleticism – use your strength & endurance to move your body thru time & space!
Don’t expect too much crossover of training aspects. Sure strength training will help you with your wrestling, boxing, sprinting etc. Nevertheless – if you want to be good at something you got to practice that foremost. This applies especially to all those crossfit guys & gals out there. Crossfit is an excellent foundation but doesn’t mean that you will excell in everything. If you do Crossfit you’ll be good in Crossfit – nothing else & nothing less.
Here’s a quick story to illustrate my point:
Back in the day when I was still boxing we had tons of bulked up street guys coming to the gym taking shitloads of testosterone into the ring. While they looked impressive and definetly talked a good game they usually succumbed fairly quickly once they got into a one-on-one situation with a true boxer and got hit.
I was a welterweight back then and walked around at about 150lbs and bodyfat <7%. I particularly remember one dude who really got into talking smack before he got into the ring. He was built like brickhouse and could box a bit as well but he couldn't move those mountains of muscles that well. Because he outweight me for at least 50lbs I never got to spar him except one day there was nobody near my weight class. So we got into the ring and he started his usual antics of talking. I was a bit nervous but as soon as the bell went I felt a deadly calmness in me.
Why? I just knew what I trained for and I knew that he got into my kitchen where I was the cook. Didn't matter that he outweight me by a third of my weight.
So we got into a heavy sparring session and he got quite mad because he just couldn't get to me. In the process his right defense got lower and lower. After he tried to catch me with a powerful one-two he was so out of balance that he fell forward. I stood my ground, dug my feet into the floor and caught him with a short left hook to the head. He fell like he was struck by a thunderbolt and the session was over. Not that I went for a knockout – it just happened because he didn't see it coming and because he wasn't trained for this.
First his emotions took over, second his athleticism hasn't followed his musular frame and third his main training purpose was to be strong and NOT to be a fighter.
On the other hand I trained and lived as a fighter and my strength training had to go hand-in-hand with my athleticism otherwise I wouldn't be able to perform in my sport.
In essence you have to know where your limitations are and what your goal of training is.
What you train for is what you get! Period.
I agree mostly Sven, I KNOW that lifting helps athletes, period, it depends how good the program is, that is HUGE
But, I get the point, where people say, just do crossfit and you will run better, yes, to a point but like Sven says, the running is what must be dialed in
Of course strength and conditioning is required in practically all sports. But it must follow the sport not the other way around. Thats what I meant with “what you train for is what you get”.
Back in the day we did strength and conditioning all day long. Nevertheless it was always to enhance the sport of boxing. Therefore NOT bulking up BUT getting stronger was a HUGE issue. Probably similar as it is in wrestling.
A typical day for me was to have the conditioning done in the morning (running, sprinting) and then to have a gym session with strength training, technical training and sparring in the evening.
The issue with crossfit nowadays is that crossfitters claim to be the fittest and the best and, and, and, …
As much as i love Crossfit I cant relate to that. You cant train Crossfit and expect to excel in other areas – although it certainly provides a good foundation.
Point is: put a fit crossfitter into a ring, the sea, the track, etc. and I guarantee you he will have no chance against a trained athlete. Not skill wise, but endurance and strength wise. Same way the other way around.
If you want to be good at something you have to train that. That’s my point.
Sorry for the long post – but I’m getting more and more annoyed with this subject.
Cheers
Hey Zach it’s Noel here. Whats your opinion about training everyday if you only do bodyweights and sometimes bodyweight with weighted vest?
Nothing that has to do with this post – nevertheless here’s a great vid I found at Ross site of the great D. Gable:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=i5o62I0njDU
Both goood examples and stories from above!
Well, hell—my training has changed a lot over the past 2 months, mainly because I had to start working 12 hr shifts. Everybody knows 12 hour shifts suck.
Instead of the usual high volume, heavy weight, tons of sets—
I shifted everything to one big mother honkin’ set. At first, I thought no way was “this going to do it.” But to my surprise, I am getting stronger—actually lost some bodyfat (shifted my nutrition….I eat two large meals a day now…heavy focused on protein), and cut my training time in half. 1 set obviously does not take very long! The effort put into it, makes it feel very intense—but it is still 1 set. Been able to keep adding 5-10lbs every week. I train 6 days a week, about 5 minutes in the morning– and 10-12 minutes after work. Pick 1-3 lifts ,hit it hard once.
Different, but still getting results.
For wrestlers, the key is to get stronger but not necessarily bigger. How do you train to gain strength yet not put on size? Wanting to avoid the weight cutting issues.
Mark I will do a video on this, this is my forte, brotha!
Z,
I love this topic, because for the past few months I have been training 5-6 days a week, a short 1.5-2.5 run in the morning to warmup then heavy lifting (squat/bench/deads/overhead pressing in that order)Monday-Thursday on Fri-Sat morning I do whatever I feel like doing, beach muscles, tire flipping, whatever, and then 2000m swimming in the afternoons Mon-Friday. I have found that since I started adding the swimming in the afternoons, my recovery time in between my heavy lifting sets or sprinting has gone through the roof. Where I used to have to wait for 2-3 minutes in between really heavy sets or full on sprints, I now only need 45secs to a minute. All of this at the ripe old age of 37. I say all of this to note that I have actually gone up a few pounds in weight, lost bodyfat and I do not feel overtrained at all. A few folks have told me that I was training to much, this that and the other,but I dont feel overtrained at all. The first week of swimming I was feeling beat down a little in the evenings, but that went away after the first week. I get 6.5-8 hours sleep almost every night. For nutrition I am eating a small breakfast after training to refuel for the afternon swim, a big salad during the day and one large meal at night. I am really starting to think mental state has a lot to do with “overtraining”. What say you Z? Is overtraining more of a mental reaction to training hard that leads to a physiological response resulting in that “beat down” feeling?
I forgot to mention that I have gained noticable size and strength the last few months using htis training scheme with a bodyweight increase of 5 pounds.
I have found that a Monday/Wednesday/Friday split using a 5×5 of Squats, DeadLift and Bench Press did in fact increase my size. Problem is that it gets boring and although I feel it didn’t beat up my CNS, science says it will right? When I Crossfit, the lactic acid buildup is insane , but my body gets used to it and although I do not gain size , my muscular density is intensified. Plus it’s fun…..Intensity via competition. I am also 37 and an ex football player who balked till I was 33 extending my career after college to playing in Germany. Competition is embedded in me. Although the heaviest I’ve been was when I was 27 and weighed 205 (WR)..as I aged, I lost size….I am now 183 and can’t seem to pack on any size without the 5 x 5 method. Note: Might I add I do not eat red meat or pork or take creatine as I did when I played. How can I incorporate CF with the 5 x 5 and get enough rest for healing?