Strength training every two days or three days

There has never been a unified standard answer to whether you should train every two days or every three days for strength training - the core depends on your training level, single training capacity, recovery ability, and even your daily work intensity. The fixed frequency given by others is a reference, and only your own body feedback is the gold standard.

First of all, let’s clarify the concept that many people are confused about: what we often call “training every two days” generally means that the interval between two full-system trainings is 48 hours, and 3-4 trainings can be scheduled in a week; “training every three days” is an interval of 72 hours, training 2-3 times a week. Don't underestimate the 24-hour gap. If you do it right, you will make rapid progress. If you do it wrong, your practice will be in vain or you will get injured.

Last week, a fan who had just practiced for 3 months came to complain to me. He said that a fitness blogger with millions of followers said, "Exercise every three days is the golden frequency that does not damage the joints."

In fact, to put it bluntly, it is the most basic physiological logic: the essence of strength training is to rely on weight-bearing to tear out tiny damage to muscle fibers, and then rely on rest and eating to repair and thicken the muscle fibers, which is what we often call excessive recovery. The old-school bodybuilding circles of the last century generally believed that the peak recovery rate for ordinary trainers was around 72 hours, so the plan back then was basically to train the whole body three times a week, just to hit the peak before stimulating the next round. This is also the source of the saying "training every three days is more scientific", which was indeed a conclusion verified by a large number of practitioners decades ago.

However, in recent years, exercise physiology has been updated rapidly, and more and more natural trainers are showing off the results of high-frequency training. Everyone has discovered that the time for excessive recovery is not fixed at all: novices or people with a small single training capacity, the degree of muscle fiber damage is light, and the recovery peak will be reached in about 48 hours. If you wait for 72 hours, the peak will be passed before training, and the stimulation efficiency will naturally be low. Nowadays, many novice-friendly programs promote the upper and lower limbs to be divided into four parts. One round every two days is the bonus of high-frequency stimulation. I also practiced this way in the first half of the year. At that time, the squat weight could increase by 5kg every month. The progress was so fast that I couldn't believe it.

But if you have been practicing for two or three years, can squat and pull more than 1.5 times your body weight, hit more than 80% of the 1RM weight every time you enter the gym, and do more than a dozen sets of compound movements, then you really shouldn’t force yourself to practice every two days. Several friends around me who compete in bodybuilding competitions finished heavy squats and pulls during the preparation period. The next day, they had to hold on to the railing even when going downstairs. Not to mention training their lower limbs, even pulling their backs felt that their waists were weak. In this case, let alone waiting 72 hours, sometimes it is normal to slow down for 4 days. If you insist on keeping up with the frequency, you will only deform the movements and injure the joints. In severe cases, you will have to lie down for half a month, which will delay progress.

Not to mention that there are still people who work 996 every day. It’s already 10 o’clock when they get home from get off work. They squeeze out 40 minutes to practice shoulder and back training. The training capacity is already small. Let alone training once every two days, it’s okay to take 20 minutes every day to practice core and arms. You can’t practice twice a week just because you are stuck on the “golden frequency”. What’s the difference between the speed of progress and a turtle crawling? There are also some people who have old injuries or have poor physical strength. They are still sore after practicing for two days. Even if you practice twice a week, as long as the movements are standard and the capacity is sufficient each time, it is better than practicing hard.

Anyway, my advice to my friends is not to worry about numbers. If you try it for half a month, you will know: if you practice every two days, you can maintain the last training volume and even increase the weight every time you enter the gym. If you sleep for 7 hours and you don't feel tired when you wake up the next day, then you can continue to practice and increase the weight. After all, the purpose of our fitness pictures is to make ourselves comfortable and see progress, not to make up numbers for others to see, right?