Opinion

How often should you train?

Everyone who lifts weights to maximize muscle wonder how much should they be training in a week for progress and the best gains. Research and expert bodybuilders suggest training each muscle group twice a week for maximum growth and seeing fast results, so how often should you train?.

Most weightlifters conform to the norm of training one muscle group a week, targeting all the muscle groups for the duration of the week whereas professional bodybuilders train each muscle group twice a week or even more depending on their goals.

According to study review conducted by Journal sports medicine, they covered and studied progress from individuals who trained a muscle group onne, twice and thrice a week finding that training one muscle group twice a week yields the best results because the muscle fibers are stimulated right after the first workouts recovery forcing it to grow and rebuild again in the second training session.

So for instance if you train your biceps on Tuesday it’s best to follow up with the same bicep workout on Friday.

The best part in the review showed that individuals who did 3 sets of bicep exercises twice a week each gained more muscle then individuals who trained for 6 or more sets once a week.

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The logic does makes sense as scientists argue that the muscle building period for any muscle group is usually 48 hours, so if you don’t stimulate the muscle again after the muscle building period you won’t promote growth faster.

This leaves the muscle in a constant muscle building state, but having a good diet is important aswell.

The science and research towards bodybuilding is constant, try training twice a week and see if it works for you.

Covering all muscle groups twice a week maybe tough also depending on intensity. So having two upper body workouts and two lower body workouts in a week is ideal. Especially a total lower body workout is great for gains and strength.