Once or Twice a week?

Degsy

I started weight training just over a year ago primarily for mass.I used to train three times a week till i built up strength then raised the intensity and cut down to twice a week.I started noticing big gains after four months and then i heard only train once a week for mass.I've been doing this since before christmas and i've noticed my triceps are lagging behind,my bench is almost static and i've developed even more of a beer belly.My usual routine is to train all body parts on the same night,bench,deadlift,shrugs,curls and various machines.My diet is 6 meals a day,protein with every meal and i've started creatine supplementation again.Just how often should i be training?

joejoem

Who ever told you to train once a week for mass is a spa.

Train 3 - 4 nights a week for an hour or so and spend the other 23 hours of the day eating and sleeping.

Divide your work outs into areas.

Monday - Legs
Tuesday - Chest
wednesday - gut (eat eat eat)
thursday - back
Friday - Shoulders and arms
Saturday - eatfest
Sunday - eatfest


Despite what you have heard you should do cardio also.

Dragan

If I might be so bold, if you are training all bodyparts each night you are in the gym then you are not training as intensely as you think you are!

No offence.

I would suggest you split out by Chest and Biceps one day, back and triceps another, legs another and shoulders another.

Or you can doe arms one day, chest and shoulders, back, legs.

Or quads and chest, arms and calves, back and hams, shoulders like I currently do.

I train pretty all out, and I know for a fact that on Monday, after I hit chest, I'm not gonna be able to hit it for at least 5 to 6 days. It just won’t happen
It will be too tired. This is how I know I'm giving it my all in training, and I'm growing because I'm taking as long as I need to recover!!!!

Try splitting out your body parts over the week! How many days can you get to the gym dude?

incisor71

I guess the "once a week" maxim that the OP was supplied with got misconstrued as "train once a week" instead of "train one muscle group once a week". My weights regime includes two/three body parts per session (suits me better, as I can concentrate better on the particular areas) as in:

Monday - chest/back
Wednesday - lower body (quads, hamstrings, calves)
Friday - shoulders and arms

These sesssions, of course, need to be bolstered by cardio sessions, of which I also have three per week.

Degsy

Dragan wrote:

If I might be so bold, if you are training all bodyparts each night you are in the gym then you are not training as intensely as you think you are!

No offence.

I would suggest you split out by Chest and Biceps one day, back and triceps another, legs another and shoulders another.

Or you can doe arms one day, chest and shoulders, back, legs.

Or quads and chest, arms and calves, back and hams, shoulders like I currently do.

I train pretty all out, and I know for a fact that on Monday, after I hit chest, I'm not gonna be able to hit it for at least 5 to 6 days. It just won’t happen
It will be too tired. This is how I know I'm giving it my all in training, and I'm growing because I'm taking as long as I need to recover!!!!

Try splitting out your body parts over the week! How many days can you get to the gym dude?

Realisticaly i can only get to the gym twice a week,i often work late in my job and cant make it

Dragan

In that case then i would suggest a simple upper body, lower body split.

joejoem

Degsy wrote:

Realisticaly i can only get to the gym twice a week,i often work late in my job and cant make it

I know the feeling but suck it up if you want to put on size right.

Mondays I leave for work at 7:30am, then college afterwards till 9:30, into the gym for an hour and a half.
Same on tuesday
Thursday work till 9 then into gym
Friday into gym straight after work for an hour or so.

There is also the option of going in the morning.

Degsy

Dragan wrote:

In that case then i would suggest a simple upper body, lower body split.

My legs dont take much training,they're pretty big anyway,i really want to concentrate on upper body.What would be a good upper body split?Are there some body groups its best not to train together?

Dragan

I would suggest you do back, triceps and rear delts together with a little bit of side delts on one day, with chest, biceps, front delts and some more side delts on the other day so.

t-ha

Morning gym work sux. I would say that the amount of time you spend in the gym versus resting up depends on your body-type. Easy gainers can and should work out frequently, say 4 times a week plus a whole load of cardio and stuff. Hard gainers should have more rest days than work-out days.

In terms of splits, I'm not neccessarily a huge fan - but one thing I would recommend is balancing your 'push/pull' volume. I.e. If you train alot of chest one day, and don't do your back for a half a week, then your walking around with hunched over shoulders for half a week becuase your chest is pulling them in.

If you're only goin to go twice a week then I would say do big compound lifts and only split up bodyparts for specific work as a small part of your training. Learn how to do cleans - they rock!

Alternatively, go back to what you were doing before if you were still making gains??

Degsy

t-ha wrote:

Morning gym work sux. I would say that the amount of time you spend in the gym versus resting up depends on your body-type. Easy gainers can and should work out frequently, say 4 times a week plus a whole load of cardio and stuff. Hard gainers should have more rest days than work-out days.

In terms of splits, I'm not neccessarily a huge fan - but one thing I would recommend is balancing your 'push/pull' volume. I.e. If you train alot of chest one day, and don't do your back for a half a week, then your walking around with hunched over shoulders for half a week becuase your chest is pulling them in.

If you're only goin to go twice a week then I would say do big compound lifts and only split up bodyparts for specific work as a small part of your training. Learn how to do cleans - they rock!

Alternatively, go back to what you were doing before if you were still making gains??

Mostly because i've started incorporating more excercises into my sets and it's taking much longer to get them all done and i'm considerably more knackered at the end of a session.I was concerened that doing that twice a week would lead to overtraining or whatever

t-ha

Degsy wrote:

Mostly because i've started incorporating more excercises into my sets and it's taking much longer to get them all done and i'm considerably more knackered at the end of a session.I was concerened that doing that twice a week would lead to overtraining or whatever

How long are you spending in the gym per session? I'm in and out in under an hour, otherwise the intensity dips. There's no point hanging around doing set after set for hours until you can barely stand - in fact it will work against you. If you should be lifting 50kg on a given lift but your only lifting 40kg because you've already done an hour and a half's work in the gym and you're tired - is that really going to force your body to grow?*

Warning - rant: I've seen guys in gyms sit down and do about 8 variations of bicep curls, with set-rep parameters like 3 x 10 for all of them! I mean what is that achieving! What is it achieving that 2 x 10 wouldn't! These guys don't know the answer because they don't have a reason for doing what they do, they just keep reading about this curling variation, and that curling variation and they just keep on adding them to their programme until it's a three hour marathon. - end of rant

Do a big compound movement like weighted chin-ups. If you're a big dude with a good base already, and you decide that you want to work the long head of your biceps particularly then fine - grab an incline bench immediately after your chins and curl (high-volume post-fatigue method). But in general, use big compounds to build your base, then use isolated exercises once you can actually see what's weak or what needs a bit of a specific bump.


*The answer is "no it won't" by the way