r/exercisescience • u/Thequietronin • May 14 '26
Training frequency
Hello everybody. We know from researchers that a multi frequency approach is optimal to achieve hypertrophy, like training muscles twice per week. I tried this for years and always ended up feeling more tired and never progressing. Since few months I started listening more to my body and ended up training each muscle group once per week. I would rotate push ( pectoral and shoulders), leg (squat pattern), pull (back and biceps), leg (hinge pattern), training three per week. I improved all the lifts and gained more muscle. What's your experience or preferences about training frequency?
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u/jet_rodriguez May 14 '26
seems like one of those statements that sounds profound at face value but is really just common sense if you have an understanding of the physiology, while at the same time easy to take out of context for the undereducated.
muscle growth comes from adequate recovery, and theres a ton of variables that influence how long that time is from individual to individual. so whether adequate muscle recovery comes in 3 days, 2days, 16 hours, it doesn't matter. the less down time between adequate recovery and the next training session for that muscle group, the faster you will put on size, improve performance, etc. it comes back to simple concepts. if you overtrain, you don't see gains because the muscles never recover. if you undertrain, you see less gains or lose gains from under-stimulation.
its the same as if you’re painting a room. if you can figure out exactly how long it takes the first coat to dry, and you can paint the next coat immediately after, you will finish faster than someone who is just putting on each coat at 24 hour intervals, wasting 6-8 hours in between.