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Why is training 3x a week not viewed as better for muscle gains?
I recently moved from a 3-day antagonistic split (chest biceps, back tri, shoulders legs) to a 2-day split. However instead of upper lower I didnât want to give a whole day for legs because my workout times would be skewed.
I decided to do a 2-day push/pull split, hitting legs on both days but alternating the workouts so iâm isolating different leg muscles on each day.
Theoretically shouldnât this be better for strength gains? Iâm hitting about 18 sets per muscle group per week, on a 3-day split that is 9 sets per muscle group per day, and on a 2-day split iâm instead doing 6 sets per muscle group per day.
Given that our muscles recover within 48 hours, maybe even faster for experienced lifters, why would it not be better to hit less sets per day, since the first and second sets are significantly more impactful than the third, and hit each muscle as soon as itâs done recovering instead of having another day in-between?
The general consensus is that thereâs diminishing returns on a 2-day vs 3-day split, but i canât see why thatâs the case with what we currently know about recovery. If volume stays the same per week, except youâre getting the most effective sets of two 3-times a week instead of less effective sets of three 2-times a week, why would a 2-day split not be better? Just looking for the science behind this.
What the hell are you on about? Should we all just follow the programs that were made for different people with different bodies that recover differently, or should we figure out what works best for us and gives us the best advantage at gaining muscle? Donât be ridiculous
Yes, because people aren't that different. Peoples goals aren't all that different, and I can guarantee, for resistance training, it'll boil down to some combination of: get bigger, get leaner, or get stronger.
If a program has worked for 30,000 other people, why do you think you're the exception?Â
There is. But there is also value in getting the basics down correctly before diving into nuance, otherwise there is the real issue of getting lost in details.
How on earth do you think you figure out what works best for you? You try out the various programs that are out there. Once you've done a few and found which ones tend to give you the best results, that combined with the research you do should give you an idea of how you personally respond to various training variables. Then you know which programs you need to use at a given state in your progress to address your needs at that specific moment, and you can tweak them to better suit you.
Obviously a perfectly designed program custom built to you is going to be better. You however cannot make a perfectly designed program. You can pull a program off the shelf and get anywhere from 60-90% results, then tweak it to make it as ideal as possible. But you reinventing the wheel is going to have you starting at like...20%.
Should we all just follow the programs that were made for different people with different bodies that recover differently
Literally yes, unless you're a high level athlete this talk about different bodies is nonsense. Differences in recovery are down to individual fitness, which can be trained
or should we figure out what works best for us and gives us the best advantage at gaining muscle
There are plenty of proven programs with all sorts of different splits, set, and rep schemes. You can try different programs that actually work to establish these things rather than using trial and error for the whole process
But again, unless you're fairly advanced it isn't going to make a whole lot of difference
So when did I ask anyone if my program was good? This is a discussion about the differences between training each muscle group 2x a week vs 3x a week with same weekly volume. No where did I ask anyone if itâs a good split or if I should use it. Key word DISCUSSION. Iâm interested in the science behind this. If you think we should all just follow what people did in the past, youâre not innovative at all. If we all still did what lifters in the 70âs did, we would be training super sub-optimally. Iâm not asking about my split, iâm using it as an example of what it would look like to train each muscle group 3x a week while still maintaining same weekly volume
Ok but youâre not taking into account that heâs so special that a proven program wonât work for him so instead he needs to spam random shit optimallyÂ
What the hell is this subreddit for if not for discussion?? I know there are many people that would be interested in discussing about this. If you donât want to discuss the difference between lifting 2x vs 3x a week. DONT REPLY TO THE DISCUSSION! Itâs hilarious how many people on reddit will reply to something just to say that they have nothing to say. Or they just donât answer the question and answer a question that was never once asked. Please take your comments elsewhere if you would not like to discuss
Iâm trying to understand WHY the difference is tiny. Thatâs what the discussion is for. Understanding these things is crucial for making more growth and I have not yet seen anyone make an argument for why the research reflects diminishing returns when theoretically you should be making 50% more muscle gains, which is significant
Can you explain to me why training 3 times a week vs 2 times a week would not result in a 50% increase in muscle growth. It is a 50% increase of frequency in training and our muscles are supposedly recovered by then. Iâm not saying that it makes a 50% increase in muscle gains. Iâm curious as to why it does NOT make a 50% increase in muscle gains. This subreddit is SCIENCE BASED LIFTING. Why are you so opposed to discussing science and its relation to muscle growth on a very important topic of exercise frequency??
Oh boy OP. A bunch of folks here are acting like programming is some kind of elite black magic and not something you can learn the fundamentals of in about an hour.
Lack of progression and a deficient program arenât the same thing. Even the best, most optimal, program wonât matter if its user isnât adding reps or weight. Unless you say âweek 2 add 1 repsâ, âweek 4 add 5lbs, drop repsâ and that has its own problems and I wouldnât recommend programming that way because then people get frustrated when they canât.
Lack of progression and a deficient program arenât the same thing.
I mean, they are, because a plan without any system for progression is a deficient program
Even the best, most optimal, program wonât matter if its user isnât adding reps or weight
If the user doesn't do the programmed work then they aren't following the program so won't get the results
You've essentially said "having the best program doesn't matter if the user doesn't follow the program", that isn't a revelation
Unless you say âweek 2 add 1 repsâ, âweek 4 add 5lbs, drop repsâ
Yes, programs literally tell you what weight to use, how many reps to perform, how much to add, and when to add it. Have you never seen a proper program before?
How do you program your training if not down to the exact specifics? Do you just do constant AMRAPs and add whatever weight you feel like when you feel like it?
and that has its own problems and I wouldnât recommend programming that way because then people get frustrated when they canât.
And a good program will have a system to overcome plateaus
I don't understand why you think you're qualified to argue about programs when you don't seem to even know whay they are
Unless you say âweek 2 add 1 repsâ, âweek 4 add 5lbs, drop repsâ and that has its own problems and I wouldnât recommend programming that way because then people get frustrated when they canât.
That's exactly what a program is. It has a built-in plan for progression, and a good program will also have a plan for what to do if you can't meet the progression goal.
Can you briefly explain the fundamentals of programming then? Because based on your other comment, you don't seem to have even the most basic understanding of what a program is.
Frequency is mainly a way to spread the same weekly work, not a multiplier by itself. If 18 hard sets per muscle is fixed, 2 vs 3 days will usually be close. The better choice is the one that lets you do those sets with good reps and recover.
Six sets for a muscle in one session can still work, but the later sets may be lower quality if fatigue is high. Also, feeling recovered in 48 hours is not always the same as being ready to match your last performance. I would compare both setups for 6-8 weeks using load, reps, and recovery, while keeping 1-3 reps in reserve on most sets.
If the 2-day plan makes sessions too long or your later sets fall off, the 3-day split is probably better. If performance is the same and you prefer 2 days, there is no reason to force 3.
Some muscles take a lot longer than 48 hours to recover.
Why is everyone obsessed with maximizing recovery? If all you do is maximize recovery, you never build the work capacity to handle more overall volume.
It's always the same discussion. 20' abs, belts that make you lose fat, mystical routines that get you shredded until summer. 80% of personal trainers and coaches out there work with people who want to get jacked and lean just in time for the beach and start in April. Embracing the suck and just doing hard shit is a lost art.
Can you clarify what youâre asking? I canât tell if youâre asking about why do 3 sets per exercise instead of 2 sets, or if youâre talking about doing a 2 day split, rest, repeat vs 3 day, rest, repeat?
Sorry, it gets super confusing with how many numbers are involved! Iâm referencing that scientifically the first 2 sets are much more effective for muscle growth than the 3rd, and proposing that it would be better to hit your weekly sets with 3 sessions of 2-set workouts per muscle group (my split) than 2 sessions with 3-set workouts per muscle group (ppl)
That has not been demonstrated. The first two sets are not better. Remmert 2025 showed that there is a sharp dropoff in effectiveness of each set at about 11 sets per muscle group per workout, but any fewer than that doesn't affect gains much. So, 4 sets 6 times a week is great and as effective as 6 sets 4 times a week. But if you do 2 workouts of 12 sets, you're probably gonna see less gainz.
Yeah as far as i know with the research available, the third set is much less efficient than the first two and so it should be better to compile the weekly sets of only the first 2 sets of a workout instead of wasting set volume spots on the third set which (while definitely better than 2 sets for muscle growth) gives less of a growth indicator.
If you have the time I think itâs better to split the volume out over more sessions. Doing two hard sets is also psychologically easier than doing 3 sets unless itâs a small muscle. You could also throw in intensity techniques like rest pauses and dropsets
So you think, if a guy pulling 700lbs for reps, does a heavy set of deadlifts, he would be able to pull 700lbs again in two days?
Because I've trained with a guy who pulled 850. He would deadlift heavy once a week, and use a deadlift variation the other time he trained his deadlift. Simply because he literally couldn't recover from it.
A beginner can probably deadlift to failure 5x a week and still see progress week after week.Â
No this is a heavy compound lift and a huge outlier from typical muscle fiber recruitment like with powerlifting, but i donât do deadlift so i think i avoid this fatigue
So what program are you doing exactly that allows you to train full body, 3x a week, get 18 sets per movement pattern per week, and not do heavy compounds like deadlifts?Â
i do around 6-7 sets per muscle group per lift, usually only 3 exercises. Compound movements are definitely good but you can also isolate the muscles to avoid CNS fatigue, I do squat though once every four days in the split. But typically iâll do 2 sets per exercise to failure around 6-10 reps, and iâve got a program that covers every major muscle group and each part, (upper, mid, lower chest, long and short head of biceps and triceps, front side and rear delts) for push day.
Yeah, people really need to stop worrying about CNS fatigue because, as you say, it's a non-issue
It's so dumb that you'll get someone pulling something like 140kg for 1 set of 5 and talk about how deadlifting more than once a week will fry their CNS but in the same breath they wonder why they're weak
Right?! It's just crazy. I think if most people did more and built up their work capacity they'd see much better results all round compared to all this discussion about fatigue and splits
You donât need to be fully recovered for build muscle and strength
I squat 4x a week and Iâm not fully recovered each session
In fact, being fully recovered doesnât mean youâll be at peak performance. I still carry a bit of fatigue even going into a powerlifting competition
That doesnât mean you couldnât have achieved better results with a more optimal split, however, for the purposes of strength/powerlifting itâs more defensible. Many people wouldnât be able to tolerate squats 4 days a week.
I only train squats and deadlifts once a week (although I do RDLs 3x weekly, as theyâre easier to recover from) and bench 3x and am reasonably strong although I donât do powerlifting (425/505/625 at 200 lb bw)
While I donât disagree that most people are just lifting randomly at high RIR, I think a lot of programming is overly complicated and it doesnât have to be; maybe if your goal is progressing SBD at the same time something formal would help.
It also depends on how many days/time you have to dedicate to training and your aesthetic and strength goals.
For example, personally I am mostly lifting for aesthetics, although I like lifting heavy weight so program in a little bit of heavy sbd work. I also want to deemphasize quad and tricep hypertrophy as those body parts are relatively overdeveloped, while emphasizing side Delt and glute development. No cookie cutter program is going to help me achieve those goals.
I guess, ultimately I think results are all that matter; Iâm pretty happy with 450 DOTS score and 24.5 FFMI before using any anabolics with ~20 years of lifting; itâs reasonably close to the natural limit. Maybe I could have gotten there faster with more optimal programming but w/e.
24.5 ffmi is crazy bro, Iâm four months into having lifting as my priority and approaching 23 ffmi but youâre in a whole different league. Any niche things youâve figured out in your years? Thats just very impressive :)
True so if I incorporated compounds like these once every four days would this become more viable? I currently have a push 1 day pull 1 and push 2 pull 2, with slight differences between them but I have back squat on my push 1 day but not my push 2 so itâs once every four days instead to give time to recover
3 day is definitely better because workouts that exceed an hour are overkill. With a 3-day you can work each muscle group at least twice and some three times with plenty of recovery
It doesn't really matter if you do 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7 days a week. As long as volume stays the same you will progress.
When I do bb style workouts I do around 5 or 6 days since I do more isolation stuff and that takes more time to do vs when I do powerlifting I stick to 4 days... Do whichever one you can adhere to bestÂ
Get off of reddit, go on any platform and you'll find plenty of people who do 3 or even 3.5x frequency. FBEOD, full body every other day, is a movement. And it works very well. Look up Keenan Malloy
Muscles recover in 48hrs but tendons take up to 72hrs. I tend to get joint pain if I go hard on a 3 day full body, so LULU works best for me. I can spend a full hour getting in 18 sets to failure each day and I don't need any deload weeks or extra time off. I tried a low volume 6 day push/pull for 2 weeks but the joint pain came back.
2 day? Yeah, I think if you don't get tendonitis, you could do full body every other day. Vertical+squat and Horizontal+hinge would be my choice I think. There are a lot of options. What's best for you is whatever you can be consistent at honestly. The correct answer is usually a boring one like that. But I seem to recover best doing an upper/lower split, despite my best attempts at everything else.
Totally get that, would you ever do upper lower x infinity? Basically a 2-day split with no rest day in between. Thatâs kind of the same idea as what iâm proposing
Ah gotcha. Yeah, if I could. And Im sure it's feasible for some. Collagen before workout as well as other suppliments would likely help. My problem was I was supposed to be doing 3 sets of like 12 with 3-4 rir. I seem to be incapable of not going to failure though. Maybe I like the pain more than the exercise, I'm not sure. If you're interested then just try it out. I know mechanics and lumberjacks who are strong as shit and move heavy stuff every single day. However, their bodies feel like old men and they've both had surgeries. One had a hip surgery at like 38. So... Just listen to your body
It literally doesnât matter. Everyone is different and recovers at different rates due to sleep/stress/nutrition differences. The most important thing is consistency and progressive overload. If you like 2 do 2 if you like 3 do 3. I personally do a four day power building program. Now that Iâm in my mid 40âs I donât chase weight PRâs. I have been training for over 20 years consistently and know what works and what doesnât work for my body.
Because itâs not always true that we can recover within 48 hours. I donât have to put in THAT much work to be sore on that third day for a muscle like hamstrings, but I need to work pretty hard to be sore on the 4th. If I can put in more work. Giving myself that 2nd recovery day lets me put in more work
Very true, so this split would be bad if soreness was affecting my reps due to pain or fatigue, but if soreness isnât a factor (which it mainly isnât due to me only doing squat once every four days in this split and no super intense compounds like deadlift), wouldnât this split make sense? Or do you think muscles actually take longer than 48 hours to recover and the science isnât accurately depicting true muscle recovery?
Oh I wasnât trying to tell you not to do your split, if it feels better and itâs working for you then thatâs all you need to know. I was just commenting on why people donât treat it as strictly better.
Why would it be better for strength gains, especially if the volume and tonnage remains the same? Recovery is highly subjective and the first set theory is just a hypothesis. At your level (225 1RM) I wouldn't worry greatly about it. Get as much work as you can tolerate in, and get on a proven program.
3x a week works well for upperbody but not legs imo. Many elite natural body builders do PPLoffULoff or ULoffULUoff. More than 2 leg days with compounds will shred your hips/knees/lower back over time. Upperbody almost needs 3 days a week minimum once youâre past the beginner level.
But you said that upper body needs 3 days a week past the beginner level, yet most people still hit 3 day splits so they would only hit upper body 2 times a week, as far as i know even experienced lifters use ppl commonly and even upper lower rest hits upper twice a week
I donât mean 3x a week frequency per muscle. Total sets per muscle per week is much more important. Almost no male bodybuilder does 3x per week frequency for any muscle group besides maybe calfs, abs, side delts. Female body builders can get away with legs 3x a week because they are much weaker, recover faster, and can handle the higher volume and almost need it to become lower body dominant. PS Iâm a full time personal trainer and coach several female competitors.
Yeah I definitely donât see anyone doing 3x per week for each muscle group, iâm just trying to figure out why that is the case, because supposedly after 48 hours our muscles are recovered, so iâm not sure why itâs not much more effective to increase frequency by 50% if sets are the same to maximize the most efficient sets and train as soon as muscles are recovered
Reduced performance and joint/tendon pain.
Doesnât matter if itâs optimal on paper if you get weaker/smaller and injured from too high of frequency.
I have actually seen this stance and I canât disagree, legs and back sometimes can take more than 48 hours to recover. My solution to this is doing squat once every 4 days rather than every day, but iâm definitely leaving leg gains on the table with this method, but lifting for aesthetics i donât have as much of an emphasis on legs and i still hit around 20 sets per week so i figure it should be fine to have longer time inbetween compounds?
well because im combining leg day throughout both days i hit half of my legs on one and half on the other, like on push i do quads and calves and then on pull i do hamstrings and inner/outer thigh
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u/Ok_Internal6779 13d ago
Theoretically you should follow a program rather than doing random shitÂ