Arnold Schwarzenegger is famous for high volume workouts in which he trained each body part three times per week with 20 or more sets per workout. This amounts to at least 60 sets per muscle group each week. In order to accumulate this much training volume, Arnold often trained twice per day, six days per week.
10 Exercises Three Times per Week
Arnold’s high volume training would be overkill for the majority of bodybuilders, but it’s important to know that Arnold shared a simpler approach to training for mass in a pamphlet that he wrote several decades ago The pamphlet is titled, How To Gain Weight And Muscular Massiveness. As of today, there are currently three copies of this pamphlet available on Amazon.
In this pamphlet, Arnold explains that his early years of training for mass consisted of three full body workouts per week. These workouts are explained in the video that is posted below:
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Modify Volume and Intensity if Necessary
You may find great success using the exact same workout that Arnold used. If not, you can modify and adjust the workout to fit your capacity for intensity and volume. Those who respond well to pushing close to failure should do so. Those who do not respond well when pushing to failure should leave two to four reps in the tank at the end of each work-set. You may also need to adjust the number of work-sets by doing fewer sets than Arnold recommends in his program.
Modify Training Frequency if Necessary
When it comes to training frequency, Arnold did this workout three times per week, but some people may find that they obtain better results by doing it twice per week. If you have tried high frequency training in the past and have found that you respond well to it, you could use it in conjunction with Arnold’s full body workout. However, if you train each body part four or five times per week, it’s almost certain that you would need to reduce the volume of each workout by doing less sets for each exercise than what Arnold recommends in his program.
If you do end up making adjustments to Arnold’s program, what are some of the indicators that determine the adjustments you should make? In my opinion, the best indicators are your strength level at the end of the workout, your energy level between workouts, and your strength from workout to workout. Are you in a severely weakened state at the end of the workout when following the workout exactly as written? You are at risk of overtraining if this is true of you and you may need to reduce the number of sets per exercise. Likewise, if you are suffering from fatigue and low energy in between workouts, and you fail to fully regain your strength from workout to workout, then you either need to reduce the amount of sets that you perform for each exercise, or you need to reduce the number of workouts that you perform each week.
It’s good to learn from great bodybuilders, and it’s good to listen to their advice and recommendations, but you must also listen to what your body is telling you, and you must let results be your ultimate guide. Don’t be afraid to try what the greats have done to become great, and don’t be afraid to adjust their training according to your own capacities so you can obtain the greatest results possible. Best of training to you.