My Undeniable Truths of Weight Training for Beginners - Part 4 - Train Infrequently - By RJ Hicks, BS, CSCS

One of the hardest concepts of proper training people refuse to accept is training infrequently. Far too many programs have people lifting weights four, five and even six days a week. It is hard to progress long term on any program like this as a natural trainee. For best results in the gym try training the entire body no more than twice a week.

Many of the old-time greats trained and preached infrequent training. These men knew recovering between workouts was need to progressively get stronger.They instinctively knew training everyday was incorrect. In fact, they always suggested irregular training on abbreviated workouts for people who were severely underweight. They were no strangers to the idea that the body needed time to rest and grow. It was learned early on training irregularly allowed you to work up to your limit or beyond on a regular bases.

It can be hard to follow this simple principle. Beginners fall into the trap of listening to all the bad information in this field and begin to believe more is always better. The current fitness fad is to have no off days. People brag about how much they go to the gym, but rarely talk about how much stronger they are in each exercise. So many of them are so screwed up they don’t even understand what progressive resistance training is. If your goal is to getting bigger and stronger you must go against what the majority believes and cut back the amount of training days. More training is not better, hard, progressive, safe training is.

Stop following the routines from the muscle and fiction magazines or the neighborhood drug users.It is not possible for 99% of natural trainees to train all the time and make anything past beginner results. Many of the programs that insist on high frequency training cannot be followed long term, usually because of injury or burnout. Training the body four to six times a week is grossly overtraining for a majority of people. One or two days off a week for recovery does nothing. You can pretend to split up the routine anyway you like, but a most of these programs have too much muscle overlap and create too much systemic fatigue, if you are truly training hard. No adaptation or growth can occur when the body is constantly being trained like this.

To avoid wasting years in the gym with little progress try limiting your workouts to no more than two full body training sessions a week. Peary Rader made no notice gains in weight training for several years until he switched to a twice a week training program built around heavy high rep squats. You can even take an extra day or two of rest if needed as long as you get two workouts in a 10 day span. There is no rule which says you must get all your training done during the week, as long as you don’t completely fall into the minimum mentality Training twice a week or twice every 7 to 10 days allows, two to three days of rest between each workout. If you plan on training the whole body using the big pushing and pulling exercises for both the upper body and lower body (which every healthy individual should), you will need the rest.

Many of the top researchers suggest there is a 72-96 hour window of recovery before de-conditioning occurs and muscle atrophy begins.This is why two to three days off between workouts is perfect. It maximizing recovery without risking muscular atrophy on a regular bases and ables you to work past your old training limits for years.

Trust the advice of men like Bob Hoffman, Mark Berry, Sig Klein, George Jowett, Peary Rader, Bradley Steiner, Dick Conner, Stuart McRobert and Bob Whelan and train infrequent. You might just be surprised how strong you get.