How much should you train during a session, and how often should you train? The answer to these questions depends on four things:
1. The minimum amount of training it takes to stimulate a training effect within a workout.
2. The maximum amount of training you can tolerate without overtraining.
3. The minimum amount of time it takes to recover your strength before working out again.
4. The maximum amount of time you can retain strength and muscle gains from the previous workout.
Some lifters can stimulate significant strength gains with a small amount of training. Others need more. Some lifters can retain the benefits of their previous workout for a week or more, while others start to lose their size and strength within a couple of days. Why is it important to know this? Because it determines what kind of training will work for you, and what kind of training won’t.
If you look to those who benefit from an extreme in training, it is possible that you will benefit from the type of training that they benefit from. However, this will only work if you fit into a small population of those who benefit from extremes. If you do benefit from extremely high or low volume, or extremely high or low frequency, you can imitate the training of people like Kirk Karwoski, Bob Gajda, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Chuck Sipes. This type of training will be discussed as you continue to read through the rest of this article, but it will be followed with the type of volume and frequency that is better suited to the majority of lifters.
Kirk Karwoski: Minimalist Training
Kirk Karwoski is an example of a famous powerlifter who worked up to one heavy set per week for each lift he did, which included, squats, bench presses, and deadlifts. It seemed like a small amount of training, but Kirk was huge, and he was super strong. The low amount of training volume in combination with the low training frequency per lift is probably less than ideal for most lifters, but for Kirk, it was enough, and it seemed to be ideal for him. He got all the stimulation he needed from one set per week, and he was able to retain his strength for a week between training sessions for each lift. Many people refer to the type of training that Kirk Karwoski did as Minimalist Training.
Bob Gajda
Bob Gajda is a huge contrast to Kirk Karwoski in terms of the amount of training volume and the training frequency he used. Bob was a bodybuilder who also occasionally participated in Olympic lifting. He basically utilized whole body workouts in the form of circuit training. Circuit training basically means that Bob would do one set for a muscle group and keep switching from muscle group to muscle group over and over again throughout a workout instead of doing consecutive sets for the same muscle group. Many people don’t know that Bob Gajda and Sergio Oliva often trained together. Sergio was a three-time Mr. Olympia who was both huge and strong.
Not only did Bob train his whole body every day, he did a lot of circuits in which each circuit consisted of many different exercises. Of course, this amounted to a lot of sets of each exercise. He is an example of a lifter who had an extreme ability to tolerate huge workloads while recovering quickly between workouts.
Other High Volume Lifters
Chuck Sipes and Arnold hit each muscle group three times per week with 20 plus sets per muscle group. Both trained hard and heavy with tons of training volume that would destroy most people, but it seemed to be ideal for Chuck and Arnold. They are an example of lifters who were highly unusual as they could tolerate huge loads and huge volumes, while hitting each muscle group three times per week. The general population will tend to wilt when doing using the volume and frequency that bodybuilders like Arnold, Chuck Sipes, and Bob Gajda used.
Pavels: Grease The Groove
Pavel Tsatsouline is known for advocating the Grease The Groove method. It is a high frequency method although it is much more moderate in terms of training volume than Bob Gajda’s high frequency training, and it is done at a slow pace. When doing this type of training, you choose a weight that you can lift for about ten reps, but you only do a set of five reps. Then rest five to fifteen minutes before you do another set. You can do this once or more per day, five days per week for the lifts you select, which is generally at least two, but no more than five lifts. The high frequency may seem like an extreme, but it is balanced with fairly low volume and modest intensity. This makes it a high frequency system that works well for the general population, not just a system that works well for those with elite genetics.
.
.
Balanced Volume and Frequency: Vince Gironda
Vince Gironda was a bodybuilder and a trainer who seemed to be balanced in his approach to volume and frequency. He was not an advocate of high volume or low volume training, nor did he commonly promote high frequency or low frequency for the general population, but he preferred training that was moderate in both volume and frequency. Vince favored three to eight sets per muscle group while training each muscle group two to three times per week.
There were a substantial amount of bodybuilders who came out of Vince’s Gym in the 1950’s and 1960’s. The amount of training volume and training frequency that Vince advocated seems to hit the sweet spot for the general population of bodybuilders. My favorite method that Vince used was to do four super-sets for the same muscle group twice per week. For example, if you are training your chest muscles, you might do a set of dumbbell incline presses for eight reps followed immediately by a set of dips for eight reps. Rest one to two minutes before doing the same super-set for your chest again. Repeat until you have done four super-sets for your chest.
Starting Strength
For those who are more interested in strength development than the development of muscle size, the Starting Strength method is one of the most popular because it also hits the sweet spot of the right amount of volume and frequency for the general population of strength-based lifters. This program calls for three sets of five reps for a pressing exercise, plus three sets of five reps for squats, and either one set of five reps for deadlifts, or five sets of three reps for cleans. The workouts are to be performed three times per week.
The point is that there are many combinations of volume and frequency that lifters use to develop size and strength. The amount of volume and frequency that you choose must include the minimum amount of training your body needs to stimulate size or strength, but it must not exceed your work load tolerance in terms of the number of sets you perform. The frequency you choose must not exceed your recovery rate. At the same time, the amount of rest days that you take between workouts must not exceed your ability to retain the benefits and the gains from your previous workout. These are all individual matters and must be discovered through trial and error. However, there are norms that most people fit into, and there are training programs that fit into those norms. These programs include:
Another book that will help you to train according to your own capacity is, The Precision Responsive Lifter. You can read this book if you click on the title or you can go to the bottom of the home page on this website where you can click on the book cover. You will also find books that address the training options that you can use if you tend to respond better to training that is higher or lower than normal in regard to volume, frequency, or intensity.
Any weight training program is going to help you get bigger and stronger. However, if you want to maximize your strength and size, I believe it is best to start with the norms that work for the majority of people, and to refine your training by gradually doing more or less to see how you respond until you find what you respond to best. I wish you the best of training, and God’s blessing upon your efforts.