High Frequency Training

[GreenMachineX]

Has anyone here tried high frequency, more then 3x per week per muscle? The strength and hypertrophy programs by Stronger By Science use this type of work, so the same muscle is worked with 4 to 5 hard sets every day for several days in a row, but the total work for the week is still normal. Has anyone tried this successfully?

 

[Jeremyk1]

Has anyone here tried high frequency, more then 3x per week per muscle? The strength and hypertrophy programs by Stronger By Science use this type of work, so the same muscle is worked with 4 to 5 hard sets every day for several days in a row, but the total work for the week is still normal. Has anyone tried this successfully?

Actually yes. It worried me at first, but I saw a video I think by Jeff Nippard about hitting everything 5 days a week. Sounds like it may be similar to what you’re talking about. I didn’t do that exactly, but I love getting in the gym every morning. It helps my mental health for sure, plus I like how it can get me loosened up and pumped for the day. Helps with back aches I may end up getting at work. So I kinda stopped taking days off. I just alternate upper body and lower body to spread stuff out slightly, but I also go harder than what they talked about. I guess it’s similar.

 

[GreenMachineX]

Actually yes. It worried me at first, but I saw a video I think by Jeff Nippard about hitting everything 5 days a week. Sounds like it may be similar to what you’re talking about. I didn’t do that exactly, but I love getting in the gym every morning. It helps my mental health for sure, plus I like how it can get me loosened up and pumped for the day. Helps with back aches I may end up getting at work. So I kinda stopped taking days off. I just alternate upper body and lower body to spread stuff out slightly, but I also go harder than what they talked about. I guess it’s similar.

Yeah, Jeff Nippard does it as well. From everything I "learned" over the years, I thought working the same muscle group on consecutive days was the cardinal sin and result in muscle loss or eventually overtraining or even rhabdo. The past month or so I've been hitting the same muscle every other day and feel like I'm barely recovered enough for that.

 

[Jeremyk1]

Yeah, Jeff Nippard does it as well. From everything I "learned" over the years, I thought working the same muscle group on consecutive days was the cardinal sin and result in muscle loss or eventually overtraining or even rhabdo. The past month or so I've been hitting the same muscle every other day and feel like I'm barely recovered enough for that.

You’d probably need to cut back volume. From what he was saying, he’ll do literally one exercise for a muscle group each day. So many bodybuilders do 4-5 exercises per muscle group anyway, but this way it spreads throughout the week. I like the idea because I feel I can put more dedication to the single exercise without worrying about all the sets to follow. Just knock it out and move on. And for later exercises, you aren’t starting with any fatigue so you could in theory perform them better as well. Also, it get your circulation going and a nice pump daily, so I could see a benefit for muscle building. For me, I’m doing sort of power building I guess. I go heavy as heck, and spend a lot of sets building up to that. Sometimes I also throw in some assistance work, but my workouts focus on one main movement. But because of how much work I’m putting in and the weights used, I split it up. I do think higher frequencies could be beneficial for a lot of people, but this also might be too much for some. You could try cutting volume some, or do what I do and split it up. Upper/lower or push/pull or something.

 

[Dustin07]

Keep in mind high frequency is all I did for a decade of hardcore xfit lifestyle.
The upside was I got shredded and I added 2-3" to my quads because we basically had some form of leg work/squats every single day. the leg hypertrophy was insane and I didn't appreciate it until I quit xfit and lost those 2 inches.

the downfall is my strength plateaued horribly. so I was fitter by a long shot, stayed sub 10% BF for years, and had great leg growth. but strength was really hard to come by once I hit like 270/330/450 I was stuck

 

[Resolve10]

Has anyone here tried high frequency, more then 3x per week per muscle? The strength and hypertrophy programs by Stronger By Science use this type of work, so the same muscle is worked with 4 to 5 hard sets every day for several days in a row, but the total work for the week is still normal. Has anyone tried this successfully?

Tons of people get lots of results this way.

I think it is important to not get into a dichotomy of thinking in which you have to do either or. I think ideally someone finds whatever frequency works "best" most of the time for them (whether that is 1x, 2x, 3x, etc.), then you spend most of the year at this "best" frequency while dipping into times of less or more frequent at other times of the year as a change up/different stimulus/etc.

I think in general for natural athletes and those looking to build strength more frequent approaches work well/better and that the idea that the SBS (and other similar like minded individuals) put forth of building up to a certain volume per session, then progressing to splitting that volume over split sessions, then building up those new sessions to higher volume, then splitting it again to even more sessions as volume hits certain levels, etc. works quite well. Either doing this for a specific movement or body part, then dropping the volume back down and focusing on a new body part or movement, or just a as an overall balanced approach in this sense seems to work quite well.

Training doesn't have to always be high, low, or medium volume, you can adjust as needed and to what seems most appropriate for you and the current goals/schedule/recover-ability.

Keep in mind high frequency is all I did for a decade of hardcore xfit lifestyle.
The upside was I got shredded and I added 2-3" to my quads because we basically had some form of leg work/squats every single day. the leg hypertrophy was insane and I didn't appreciate it until I quit xfit and lost those 2 inches.

the downfall is my strength plateaued horribly. so I was fitter by a long shot, stayed sub 10% BF for years, and had great leg growth. but strength was really hard to come by once I hit like 270/330/450 I was stuck

I'd caution trying to draw causation to strength stagnation for a crossfit style training approach. That is a very broad and usually not uniform term to training that could literally mean anything. Plenty of well thought out high frequency programs can balance strength and cardiovascular adaptations and improvements to a pretty strong degree (obviously probably not as much as solely focusing on one, but still allowing for quite a ton of progress).

 

[GreenMachineX]

Tons of people get lots of results this way.

I'm sure, but I was wondering if anyone here has done it successfully. I've only found accounts of 4x or more per week on reddit.

I think it is important to not get into a dichotomy of thinking in which you have to do either or. I think ideally someone finds whatever frequency works "best" most of the time for them (whether that is 1x, 2x, 3x, etc.), then you spend most of the year at this "best" frequency while dipping into times of less or more frequent at other times of the year as a change up/different stimulus/etc.

I think in general for natural athletes and those looking to build strength more frequent approaches work well/better and that the idea that the SBS (and other similar like minded individuals) put forth of building up to a certain volume per session, then progressing to splitting that volume over split sessions, then building up those new sessions to higher volume, then splitting it again to even more sessions as volume hits certain levels, etc. works quite well. Either doing this for a specific movement or body part, then dropping the volume back down and focusing on a new body part or movement, or just a as an overall balanced approach in this sense seems to work quite well.

Training doesn't have to always be high, low, or medium volume, you can adjust as needed and to what seems most appropriate for you and the current goals/schedule/recover-ability.



I'd caution trying to draw causation to strength stagnation for a crossfit style training approach. That is a very broad and usually not uniform term to training that could literally mean anything. Plenty of well thought out high frequency programs can balance strength and cardiovascular adaptations and improvements to a pretty strong degree (obviously probably not as much as solely focusing on one, but still allowing for quite a ton of progress).

I hear ya. I've been doing one to twice per week my entire training career, but have never increased higher because I've always gotten and started sore for much too long from even 4 sets. It was only recently I've heard to train regardless of soreness (with appropriate volumes and intensities) and the soreness will go away from the repeated bout effect.

I "learned" early on to not train a muscle again until its fully recovered, but apparently the evidence for that is weak. I'm in the process of bumping to 3x per week on certain muscle groups now, but that bogus theory is really ingrained in my head, so anymore then that for me right now is a stretch

 

[Resolve10]

I'm sure, but I was wondering if anyone here has done it successfully. I've only found accounts of 4x or more per week on reddit.



I hear ya. I've been doing one to twice per week my entire training career, but have never increased higher because I've always gotten and started sore for much too long from even 4 sets. It was only recently I've heard to train regardless of soreness (with appropriate volumes and intensities) and the soreness will go away from the repeated bout effect.

I "learned" early on to not train a muscle again until its fully recovered, but apparently the evidence for that is weak. I'm in the process of bumping to 3x per week on certain muscle groups now, but that bogus theory is really ingrained in my head, so anymore then that for me right now is a stretch

Ya I think twice is probably the sweet spot for a lot of people and it’s tough to get past some former beliefs, but higher can work for some.

I think some of it may come down to not using the right ways to measure “recovered” versus if a muscle is ready to train again, with soreness not really being totally understood.

I definitely understand your concerns, trust me I went through them when I tried it out too and whenever I try something that goes against what I used to think (regardless of how much “evidence” there is to tell me it will be ok). No promise higher frequencies will be better for you, but also there’s the chance you might find it is! Honestly you’ll probably find it’s too much for some muscles, but better for others and you can use that to continue to craft better plans that fit you specifically in the future.

 

[GreenMachineX]

I think some of it may come down to not using the right ways to measure “recovered” versus if a muscle is ready to train again, with soreness not really being totally understood.

I'm with everything you posted, but highlighting this specifically. 100%. I've always gone by soreness, because I don't know how else to measure it lol

 

[Dustin07]

I'd caution trying to draw causation to strength stagnation for a crossfit style training approach. That is a very broad and usually not uniform term to training that could literally mean anything. Plenty of well thought out high frequency programs can balance strength and cardiovascular adaptations and improvements to a pretty strong degree (obviously probably not as much as solely focusing on one, but still allowing for quite a ton of progress).

Oh I don't disagree with you, but I was thinking about this last night. And back in the hay day of 'extreme' xfit when it was 'dangerous'. the top athletes in the world going for the million dollar purses were not as strong as some members here. Hyde for instance could out squat and pull probably every single one of them at the Games. They had strength in fitness in many different impressive areas, but they definitely seemed to face natural limits with that style of training. I know what you're saying though. I'm just saying my experience yielded fantastic hypertrophy in the areas worked. Huge legs, great back, monstrous shoulders. BUT today, my chest which is genetically a strong point for me, is much much bigger because I'm more bench focused whereas in the xfit hypertrophy days 90% of shoulder work was overhead.

Layne does have that PHAT routine that might also appeal to GM. (Power / Hypertrophy split)

 

[Resolve10]

Oh I don't disagree with you, but I was thinking about this last night. And back in the hay day of 'extreme' xfit when it was 'dangerous'. the top athletes in the world going for the million dollar purses were not as strong as some members here. Hyde for instance could out squat and pull probably every single one of them at the Games. They had strength in fitness in many different impressive areas, but they definitely seemed to face natural limits with that style of training. I know what you're saying though. I'm just saying my experience yielded fantastic hypertrophy in the areas worked. Huge legs, great back, monstrous shoulders. BUT today, my chest which is genetically a strong point for me, is much much bigger because I'm more bench focused whereas in the xfit hypertrophy days 90% of shoulder work was overhead.

Layne does have that PHAT routine that might also appeal to GM. (Power / Hypertrophy split)

Ya I think it probably isn't fair to compare people competing in a sport that focuses on a ton of movements versus those competing in a sport that focuses on three.

Top competitive games athletes 1) wouldn't be training with typical class style programming anyways and 2) once they have reached an adequate level of strength, probably 450ish squat and 500ish deadlift (as long as they don't need to push the squat any higher to make up for deficits in cleans and snatches) would probably have already shifted training to emphasize improvements in repeated efforts of various weights and other skills. If anything overly strong games athletes probably have neglected proper training balance.

 

[Dustin07]

Ya I think it probably isn't fair to compare people competing in a sport that focuses on a ton of movements versus those competing in a sport that focuses on three.

Top competitive games athletes 1) wouldn't be training with typical class style programming anyways and 2) once they have reached an adequate level of strength, probably 450ish squat and 500ish deadlift (as long as they don't need to push the squat any higher to make up for deficits in cleans and snatches) would probably have already shifted training to emphasize improvements in repeated efforts of various weights and other skills. If anything overly strong games athletes probably have neglected proper training balance.

I would say you're spot on there with those top end squats and pulls. You would see a Spealer type at 165lbs kill the gymnastics stuff, never take the win on a deadlift comp, a 220lb Khalipa stomp all over the field with monster powerlifts, but then a Rich Fronning at 5'10 and 195lbs walk in with 90% of the power, 90% of the gymnastics, but a win overall.

 

[Resolve10]

I would say you're spot on there with those top end squats and pulls. You would see a Spealer type at 165lbs kill the gymnastics stuff, never take the win on a deadlift comp, a 220lb Khalipa stomp all over the field with monster powerlifts, but then a Rich Fronning at 5'10 and 195lbs walk in with 90% of the power, 90% of the gymnastics, but a win overall.

Ya it’s been a couple years since I’ve been plugged in with the deep metrics, but the average top 10 games athlete had some pretty similar stats as far as builds and lifts. There’s always outliers but there was a definite “type” at a certain point.

 

[Dustin07]

Ya it’s been a couple years since I’ve been plugged in with the deep metrics, but the average top 10 games athlete had some pretty similar stats as far as builds and lifts. There’s always outliers but there was a definite “type” at a certain point.

Which is why at 5'9" and 185lbs with a 450 pull and ring MUs for days I loved the sport lol it really catered to us average athletes who tried to excel haha

 

[GreenMachineX]

Ya it’s been a couple years since I’ve been plugged in with the deep metrics, but the average top 10 games athlete had some pretty similar stats as far as builds and lifts. There’s always outliers but there was a definite “type” at a certain point.

Probably the same cycle history too.

 

[Resolve10]

Probably the same cycle history too.

Meh. Just sounds like coping and belittling of people’s efforts at their given sport of choice.

 

[GreenMachineX]

Meh. Just sounds like coping and belittling of people’s efforts at their given sport of choice.

No, I'm only belittling lies, not their hard work.

Edit: For clarity because obviously my original intent wasn't taken correctly, I'm talking about the whole fake natty thing and lying about it.

 

[Dustin07]

To be fair when klokov was asked about Froning he said both that he was an amazing athlete and that he has a great pharmacist lol. I always thought that was funny but don't care. You can't take a PED cocktail and snatch 300lbs, do 30 ring muscle ups and 300 double unders the next day....

 

[Dustin07]

And id wager $10,000 Sam Briggs ain't natty. Again don't care but come on. She's more manly than 90% of men.

 

[Localaxis]

To be fair when klokov was asked about Froning he said both that he was an amazing athlete and that he has a great pharmacist lol. I always thought that was funny but don't care. You can't take a PED cocktail and snatch 300lbs, do 30 ring muscle ups and 300 double unders the next day....

Btw Klokov was charged with doping violations in 2022.