Knowing how many days you should exercise can be confusing. This is especially so if the amount of time you’re putting in doesn’t match up with your goals.
The training frequency will vary according to your goal, whether it is to sweat it out on the treadmill more often to lose a few pounds or increase the amount of weight you’re lifting to gain muscle or lift weights just to increase your overall strength.
Training frequency typically refers to how many times you lift weights per week, but it’s also how many times you train a particular muscle group per week.
Most strength training programs involve a training frequency of 3 to 5 times per week
Instead of just looking at how many times they show up to the gym per week, you should look at how often you are training each muscle group as well.
For instance, you could have a training frequency of 5 times per week, but what if all of your workouts focus on upper body exercises? That won’t get the results you want.
For example, an upper-lower routine typically involves training four days per week and each muscle group twice per week (two lower and two upper body workouts).
So, if you squat on your first lower body day and do hip thrust on your second lower body day, you’d be training your glutes twice per week.
If your goal is to build muscle, most people should train a muscle at least twice a week for maximum growth. The debate currently mostly centres on if training frequencies of 3+ per week are beneficial.
Muscle recovery will differ depending on your sleep, protein intake and hormonal factors.
Depending on this you can decide how often should you train a muscle group in a week.
Trained muscles may recover faster than untrained muscles. Trained individuals typically only grow 24-48 hours after a workout.
Hence advanced individuals respond better to higher training frequencies, whereas untrained individuals quite consistently grow equally well on any kind of training frequency.
To maximize your results, you need to optimize your training frequency for every muscle.
But how?
Fast twitch fibers are much more powerful, have higher force production, but fatigue more quickly. They also take longer to recover.
Slow twitch muscle fibers, however, tend to recover more quickly, both within a session and from session to session.
However, your genetics come into play a little bit over here.
If you have a higher predominance of slower-twitch muscle fibers then you can most likely tolerate and benefit from higher frequency training.
On the other hand, if you have above-average numbers of fast twitch fibres then you will probably benefit from using lower rep ranges and lower frequencies of training.
Identify patterns and see how different frequencies affect your progress. Can some muscles tolerate more frequency than others?
Start your journey with the best trainers in Delhi!