Some actors (Pitt, Raynolds, etc) claim that working out a muscle group once a week gives awesome results. Biceps on Mondays, Back on Tuesdays, etc. But most fitness sites or magazines says that's better to work out the same muscle at least twice a week. What's right?
To some extent, yes, once a week per muscle is a good balance between frequency and muscle recovery time. But here's the problem – to do that, you need to hit the gym 5 or 6 days a week so that you get every muscle. And it almost requires that you do isolation movements – weight training exercises that only work one muscle at a time. That's unnatural and time consuming.
The best workouts involve compound movements – like squats, deadlifts, pull-ups, etc. These hit multiple muscles at a time, are safer than machines, and more closely mimic natural movements. But then you have to worry about recovery time…
There are too many factors about muscle recovery time to go into here but they include your age, your fitness level, how intense your training sessions are, whether you are doing body-part splits or full-body workouts, etc.
I've found that for most people, twice a week per muscle is great. If you've been lifting for a really long time (several years) you might find that doing super-intense workouts hitting each muscle once a week is best, but be ready for a lot of time in the gym.
After stepping away from routine workouts for awhile, I went back to working out consistently in March 2009. Since then, I have done a lot of evaluating and tweaking of my workouts. My first revamp led to something along the lines of working out each part once a week, with three workouts a week. This didn't produce a lot of results for me. I did get stronger, gained mass, and lost weight, but I was getting where I wanted to be. After some thinking, I swiched to a simple full-body workout twice a week with shoulders once a week (still three workouts a week). Now I hit my major muscles differently twice a week. I sneak my legs in, as I try to run 3 times a week.
Day 5 (lighter – 8-10 reps): Pushups/pullups, dumbbell press/dumbbell rows, chest flies/rear lat raises, lunges/arnold presses
"/" means I try to superset the exercises.
Since moving to this (and missing quite a few cardio sessions), I've gained mass faster than before. I also feel a lot better than before. So I'd go with hitting groups twice a week.
Yeah, so far it's been pretty good to me. Although with the colder weather, I've been less motivated to do my cardio (whether outdoors or braving the outdoors to go to the gym).
I am doing a three day in 2 week. It's my 2nd week is running following this routine. i m in hope of success.
Monday: Chest
Tuesday: shoulder, Tricep.
Wednesday: Back.
Thursday: Legs, Bicep.
Friday: Chest.
Saturday: Shoulder, Tricep.
Sunday: Off.
Monday : Back.
Tuesday: legs, bicep.
Wednesday: Chest.
Thursday: Shoulder, Tricep.
Friday: Back.
Saturday: legs, bicep.
8-12 rep, 3-4 sets for each exercises with 3-4 exercises for each muscle.
doing once per week is enough rest and twice a week is ok, but i think it needs some more rest for a muscle. therefore i made this workout routine. i am in an aim to make big muscle. in a look i am very thin. so this workout schedule. what do you think about this programme routine?
You should really remove "biceps" and "triceps" from your routine. You might add those in later down the line, but if you are "very thin" you really don't need to worry about them. Any upper body exercise you do will work your arms. Personally, I do shoulder days as they don't make my shoulders hurt all the time (I have tons of shoulder injuries from sports when I was younger), but I can also make a huge argument that for a good while you probably won't even need a "shoulder day"; same reasoning as with arms. You should be doing a total body workout 2-3 times a week. Darrin has a great program called "Full Body Attack." Look into it.
You should really remove "biceps" and "triceps" from your routine. You might add those in later down the line, but if you are "very thin" you really don't need to worry about them. Any upper body exercise you do will work your arms. Personally, I do shoulder days as they don't make my shoulders hurt all the time (I have tons of shoulder injuries from sports when I was younger), but I can also make a huge argument that for a good while you probably won't even need a "shoulder day"; same reasoning as with arms. You should be doing a total body workout 2-3 times a week. Darrin has a great program called "Full Body Attack." Look into it.
Thanks for your valuable advice. Still i have a question if you don't mind. My question is that doing 2-3 times a week isn't it too much? i heard that a muscle needs 2-3 days to recover and taking 1 day more rest is better. Please show me a way. if possible please give me workout routine. Thank you again.
For a total body workout that's typically enough rest since you are smashing each body part with 12 sets. if you do 6 exercises (in theory) each day you MIGHT hit a muscle group 3 times max, and that's if you really hit that body part hard for the day. if you use less volume you need less rest. in that scenario where you aren't isolating each muscle it's plenty of rest.
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I am doing a three day in 2 week. It's my 2nd week is running following this routine. i m in hope of success.
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