Posted on August 18, 2015 by Jenny Cromack
Training frequency is often one of the most overlooked elements of a training program. It’s a little known fact that different elements of fitness deteriorate at different rates, and therefore require increased or decreased frequencies of training to improve or maintain. For example, why complete four aerobic conditioning sessions per week when we can achieve the same from three sessions? Aside from burning through the calories the body isn’t being developed any further, why not spend the time on another element of fitness?
This introduction probably tells you it’s not as simple as looking at how should I exercise but more about what areas of your fitness your are trying to develop and how often you should train each individual aspect of fitness.
So, during this blog we will examine different elements of fitness and how often each element needs to be trained in order to maintain its present state.
Muscle Hypertrophy
When we examine hypertrophy a variety of frequencies have been shown to be effective in enhancement. Targeting a muscle every 48 hours to 5 days will enhance muscular hypertrophy, whereas maintaining hypertrophy can be achieved by training the muscle every 7- 10 days. For example you can build the pectorals by training the bench press every 5 days, or you could maintain your present levels by training the bench press every 10 days.
Muscle Endurance
Anything endurance related generally has a very quick recovery period, because the main cost of exercise is simply metabolic fuel. As such 3-5 hours is significant enough to elicit a 90% recovery in most individuals. However when muscle endurance has been stressed far beyond normal conditioning or simply over a long period of time, such as during a marathon runner’s weekend long run, there is a structural factor we need to consider. Muscle tissues begins to break down from repeated stress, this then requires 48 hours of recovery before it can be retrained. Muscle endurance has a slow decay rate and can be maintained by training endurance once every 2 weeks.
Muscle Speed
Speed has one of the fastest rates of deterioration, not only that it requires a tremendous amount of frequency to build. If you want to get faster you need to train the exercise every 5 days without fail, at day six muscle speed starts to deteriorate. A simple strategy individuals employ to maintain or build speed is to include the snatch and its variations into the beginning of sessions. The snatch, opposed to the clean and jerk, has a faster bar speed and is associated with faster movement patterns, as such it is an excellent exercise to utilise for speed.
Muscle Strength
Strength is often an attribute associated with muscles, however it is predominately related to an individuals neuromuscular efficiency, yes large muscle are useful but never write off the smaller guy in the corner. Strength has many facets but as a rule of thumb can be trained maximally every 3-6 days, however to develop strength training at loads of 75-90% 1RM is far more beneficial, for this loading then training can in theory be completed daily. Better yet absolute strength has a relatively slow rate of deterioration and can be painted by as little as one set of the exercise (loaded sufficiently) every 14 days.
I hope this blog has got you thinking. It doesn’t really matter if your aim is weight loss as any tool that utilises metabolic fuels is useful, however why not kill two birds with one stone and build some other attributes in your body. Whether it is the ability to lift heavy, move quickly, become more powerful or simply become king of the stairs. Train smart!