How many times a week is it best to practice strength training

There is no universal "optimal number of times." For most ordinary fitness enthusiasts, the range of 2-6 times per week is reasonable. Which one to choose depends entirely on your training goals, exercise foundation, and available recovery resources.

Speaking of the debate on this issue in the fitness circle, it has been going on for almost 20 years. Ten years earlier, if you had asked the veteran in the gym wearing a washed-out hurdle vest, nine out of ten times he would have told you that it is best to practice five times a week. The chest, shoulders, back, legs, and arms should be broken down one by one, and each part should be blasted once a week. The rest of the time is reserved for recovery. This set of logic has supported most of the golden age of the bodybuilding circle, and many professional athletes still use it. After all, their recovery conditions are not at the same level as ordinary people. The degree of muscle fiber damage in a single training is high enough, and training once a week is indeed enough.

But in recent years, research on natural fitness has been slowly implemented, and more and more data are supporting it: for ordinary people who do not use drugs, the muscle-building efficiency of stimulating each muscle group 2-3 times a week is about 30% higher than training only once a week. This is also the reason why the separation of push and pull legs into three parts and the separation of upper and lower limbs are becoming more and more popular. You can practice 4-6 times a week, and each part can be rotated 2-3 times. It is indeed more cost-effective for people who are natural fitness.

If you have just touched the barbell for less than 3 months, don't just follow the trend and practice 6 times. Last year, I took care of a child who had just entered college. I watched a short video and saw a blogger saying, "Less than 5 times a week means no training." He went to the gym after class every day. As a result, he developed patellar tendinitis in less than three weeks of training. He even squatted in the toilet and gasped in pain. It took two months to heal. The novice's neural recruitment ability has not yet been developed. If you practice for three days at a time, your whole body will be sore. Forcibly increasing the frequency will only make the movements more and more deformed, and the risk of injury will increase several times. Full-body training 2-3 times a week, first standardize the squat and deadlift action patterns, which is better than anything else.

If you work nine to five and still have to work overtime from time to time, and you have to go home and do homework with your child, if you can squeeze in two complete training times a week, it is considered a lot, so there is no need to worry. I have a friend who works in Internet products. He trains once every Tuesday and Saturday, walking all the major muscle groups of his body for an hour and a half each time. The three major items have gradually increased step by step. After two years of training, he can now squat 120kg steadily. His figure is much stronger than many people who go to the gym five times a week and spend half of the time taking pictures every time. For people who don’t have time, a low frequency that can be sustained for a long time is far more useful than a high frequency that cannot be sustained.

Don’t think that the more you practice, the more you will earn. I have stepped through this trap myself. When I was aiming for a PR on the bench press the year before last, I practiced four times a week and added three extra sets of push-ups every day when I got home. As a result, I was just rushing to iterate on the project and could only sleep for more than five hours a day. Not only did I not improve my performance after practicing for half a month, I also lost 5kg on the bench press. Later, I was forced to reduce the frequency to twice a week. I forced myself to sleep for 7 hours a day and eat 1.6g of protein per kilogram of body weight, and then I slowly recovered. To put it bluntly, training only signals muscle growth. Sleeping and eating are the real process of growing muscles. If your recovery resources cannot keep up, no matter how much you train, it will put a burden on your body.

I really don’t know what is suitable for you, so I’ll give you a stupid idea: start with 3 times a week. After each exercise, you won’t feel tired when you wake up the next day, you won’t feel sleepy at work or class, and you even want to touch the dumbbells twice during your free time. Then you can try adding one more time next week; if you feel groggy, have a decreased appetite, or even lose your morning erection after the exercise (all men understand this), then quickly reduce the frequency.

Really, there is no standard answer when it comes to fitness. Others’ best solutions are always a reference. The frequency at which you can persist for a long time and slowly see progress is your best number of times.