# training muscle group once a week?



## Rob68 (Sep 16, 2008)

i have been training muscle groups once a week for 12 months now,but

have recently read an article on here thats kind of says its no advantage to do this

and that it is better to train the muscle groups twice a week(there wouldnt be much recovery time would there)

so am kind of confused really as to what to make the best gains with

or should i stick to what i know my body will allow me to?

i know sometimes its a good idea to mix things up a little as the muscles get used to things...

any advice would be appreciated

thanks

rob


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## scott134 (Jan 31, 2007)

What kind of gains have you made over the last year training each body part once a week? Are you still making gains? If so, I'd say stick withwhat's working and look at changing it up once you hit a plateau.


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## defdaz (Nov 11, 2007)

Did you read that in the new issue of Flex? Proper peed me off that did.

We're all different mate, we all recover and grow at different rates. Add in the quality and consistency of your diet, hydration, rest, sleep to how hard you train (some people train far harder or longer than others) and you'll see that how quickly you recover and then grow can be vastly different to someone else.

If you're training very intensely I'd say there's absolutely no chance you'll grow off training each group twice a week (especially when you consider you're probably already unintentionally training some parts twice a week - i.e. biceps get trained when you do back compound movements like barbell rows). Doubly so if you're natural.

Too many people train again as soon as they've recovered from the previous workout, not realising that they're effecting cutting short their growth phase! Train-recover-train-recover and never any growth. Daft!

You want Train-recover-grow-train-recover-grow. How long before the growth phase tails off is something you'll have to monitor, and don't forget that you make it hard for your body to improve your biceps if it's recovering from a leg workout etc. Your body's recovery and growth ability is finite - there's a ceiling!

Daz


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## defdaz (Nov 11, 2007)

Thanks gg, I'll try to keep it up and congrats on your recent progress too!


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## spike1 (Mar 10, 2009)

thats a great post defdaz.


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## Guest (May 2, 2009)

Personally i get better gains training every thing twice per week with lower volume splitting upper and lower body over 2 days meaning 4 days working out per week.


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## martin brown (Dec 31, 2008)

Rest makes you fat.

Training everything twice a week means you need to adjust how you train. If you want to try it don't just double the amount of workouts/work you do - that's the stupid way of doing it and as stated above probably will not lead to growth.

Research shows the same volume of work over two workouts rather than one increase muslce hypertrophy. Work = growth in this case, not rest. Stimulus = increase.

I think alot of time people do FAR too much in a session that MAKES them only train an exercise/part/movement once per week, rather than a case of being able to train only once per week.

Your body will adapt to the increase, just don't go guns blazing and train to absolute failure and expect to recover in 3 days. Also I'd suggest varying your rep range each session for better results.

M


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## robisco11 (Dec 8, 2007)

Con said:


> Personally i get better gains training every thing twice per week with lower volume splitting upper and lower body over 2 days meaning 4 days working out per week.


sorry if you've already posted it, but what would a typical week look like for you, if you dont mind posting it.


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## BigDom86 (Jul 27, 2008)

i train the same muscle group every 4-5 days. so works out twice in 7 days for that specific muscle group if you understand that

e,g,

chest bis

legs

back traps

shoulders tris

off

repeat

but i always change it , likek today i did chest traps


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## Guest (May 2, 2009)

robisco11 said:


> sorry if you've already posted it, but what would a typical week look like for you, if you dont mind posting it.


 Day 1

calves

hamstrings

quads

Day 2

chest

delts

back

tricep

bicep

2-3 exercises each muscle 1-2 working sets each.

Cycle in things like rest pause, forced reps, drop sets all depending on what training cycle i am on.

If i am feeling worn out i will train in a push pull legs fashion with one day between work outs instead.


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## robisco11 (Dec 8, 2007)

BigDom86 said:


> i train the same muscle group every 4-5 days. so works out twice in 7 days for that specific muscle group if you understand that
> 
> e,g,
> 
> ...


yeh i get it.

do you find that the one days rest and then starting the cycle again allows adequate recovery?


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## robisco11 (Dec 8, 2007)

Con said:


> Day 1
> 
> calves
> 
> ...


thanks con, looks interesting


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## defdaz (Nov 11, 2007)

martin brown said:


> Rest makes you fat.
> 
> Training everything twice a week means you need to adjust how you train. If you want to try it don't just double the amount of workouts/work you do - that's the stupid way of doing it and as stated above probably will not lead to growth.
> 
> ...


Hi Martin, I'd like to read that research if you have the links?

I have to politely disagree with some of what you're saying:

1. Rest doesn't make you fat. Consuming more calories than required makes you fat. :whistling: Training the same amount over two workouts than one won't burn any more calories if you're doing the same amount of work (energy / time) so it's a bit of a strange comment to make.

Rest ensures you actually grow, not just recover. :thumbup1:

2. The aim of each and every workout is to stress a muscle the right amount to trigger the maximum amount of hypertrophy. Any more or any less stress is not ideal and is to hopefully be avoided - I totally agree that many people over-train.

3. Even with the optimum stress for optimum hypertrophy is achieved in a workout you still have the remaining muscle groups to train. These all take energy and resources to train, recover and grow, not just the muscles trained in our hypothetical optimum workout above. For this reason you cannot just consider one muscle group and insist it will be recovered an finished with its hypertrophy within three days as unfortunately your body will be busy recovering from other later workouts.

4. The bigger you get the longer it takes to recover due to the increased amount of muscle to be repaired - thus you need to reduce your training frequency to compensate.

All in my humble physiologist opinion of course.

Cheers,

Daz


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## defdaz (Nov 11, 2007)

Con said:


> Day 1
> 
> calves
> 
> ...


Didn't Dorian Yates do this plan until he won the Brit Heavyweights? Maniacs! :beer:


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## BigDom86 (Jul 27, 2008)

robisco11 said:


> yeh i get it.
> 
> do you find that the one days rest and then starting the cycle again allows adequate recovery?


i find it fine. i think people are too worried about this whole "overtraining" thing. dont get me wrong i fully beleive you can overtrain i just think it is a lot difficult than some people think. however i more so believe in undereating.


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## Mars (Aug 25, 2007)

Con said:


> Personally i get better gains training every thing twice per week with lower volume splitting upper and lower body over 2 days meaning 4 days working out per week.


Iv'e just started doing this after a long time training 1 bodypart per wk, hope to see the gains start coming again pretty soon.


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## robisco11 (Dec 8, 2007)

BigDom86 said:


> i find it fine. i think people are too worried about this whole "overtraining" thing. dont get me wrong i fully beleive you can overtrain i just think it is a lot difficult than some people think. however i more so believe in undereating.


cool, thanks for that, interesting opinions on whether overtraining exists, and just 'how much' or 'how often' is over training.


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## Guest (May 2, 2009)

Mars i truly believe you will, muscle synthesis is a 36 hours process but cns recovery is much longer so do less volume phase in various extra techniques and watch the growth come.

Daz not overly sure but its very similar to the DC split only i do biceps with upper body not on leg day.

I do things like fst-7 style sets for biceps and triceps as i find they respond better to flooding the muscle but still i only spend 5 minutes twice per week on small groups like that.

Currently my training is purely maintance (2 weeks till show time) but i am planning a 8 week rebound to push my self to the absalute limit as far as growth goes prior to backing it all down to 2-3 work outs per week for the rest of the year. I am a big believer in cycling every thing.


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## Soybean70 (Apr 6, 2010)

Zydrunas Savickas, Marius Pudzianowski, Derek Poundstone, Jay Cutler, Branch Warren. Biggest strongest people in the world all agree. Hitting each muscle group once a week is superior. You have to absolutely kill each muscle with hi volume when you do once weekly training, but it works. Alot of the nagging injuries will disappear and you will be fresher each time you lift. It's really hard to switch to once a week but once you adapt you will be glad you made the switch.


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## liang7079 (Apr 17, 2009)

Muscles usually need to be rested for at least 48hrs befor ebeing trained again - However there's the popular theory that some are made with different types of fibers that would required to be trained more regularly (abs and calves)


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## Mark W H (Jan 25, 2010)

Maybe i'm wrong, but when people talk of training bodyparts once per week i am assuming that they still split their workouts accross maybe 3 or 4 days per week, just absolutely blasting the target group each time they hit the gym?

Currently i do two whole body workouts each week with increases to work set weights each new week as i am recovering from a back problem. This has seen me progress and grow, although some of this growth is not necessarily "new" but from mucle memory. Once i get to a point where i am not recovering sufficiently i shall reveiw the content of my workout. We have to remember that we are al different and all at different stages in our developement. What works for a 20 year old newbie won't necessarily work for a 40 year old with 20 years of gym work behind him.


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## PRL (Jul 5, 2006)

Some one beat me to it.

If your hitting the muscle group properly (Heavy), once a week should be plenty.


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## SK-XO (Aug 6, 2009)

I personally do once per week for each muscle group. Works for me tbh. And I don't do really high volume. I.e. Chest 3 exercises.


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## Guest (Apr 20, 2010)

Soybean70 said:


> *Zydrunas Savickas, Marius Pudzianowski, Derek Poundstone*, Jay Cutler, Branch Warren. Biggest strongest people in the world all agree. Hitting each muscle group once a week is superior. You have to absolutely kill each muscle with hi volume when you do once weekly training, but it works. Alot of the nagging injuries will disappear and you will be fresher each time you lift. It's really hard to switch to once a week but once you adapt you will be glad you made the switch.


Hmmm. the issue with the guys ive higlighted is that they train for strength and stregth alone. Size is generally of no importance to them. The CNS strain associated with strength training is what limits then to training once a week, not muscle repair.

Does Jay train muscles weekly? I thought he was more frequent than that?


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## martin brown (Dec 31, 2008)

I very much doubt big Z, Marius or Poundstone train muscle groups full stop lol


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