Without factoring in personal schedule or other life stuff, if one cares solely about maxing out their muscular potential, is lifting 5x or even 6x a week mandatory (I’m assuming 7x is not recommended for anyone)? I’ve heard Mike Israetel say that higher training frequencies almost always lead to better results, as in 5 is better than 4, and 6 is better than 5, though the relationship is asymptotic. Is that correct? Should someone concerned about squeezing out every ounce of gain possible look to get in 6 sessions a week?
I ask because afaik, all your programs go upto 4x a week max (correct me if I’m wrong). And I’ve also heard other heads in the industry say going higher than 4 won’t lead to better gains and is simply a matter of preference, so not sure what to believe.
We have a few programs that expand to 5- and 6-days of lifting per week, but that’s more for scheduling than anything else.
I do not think lifting 5+ times per week is mandatory to reach maximum potential, though I do think the total training volume and total training load will be quite high. Training more days is one way to fit the extra training volume in, but it’s not explicitly necessary. Data looking at altered frequency while maintaining volume are mostly equivocal.
So, there is a cap in the amount of weekly volume one needs to grow and going above this won’t lead to better gains, and it doesn’t matter whether you spread this volume over 6 days or do it all in 4, is that correct?
What if someone instead of spreading out the volume, does all the necessary vol within 4 days but then adds 2 more days of training to add even more extra volume? Is it possible to recover from this? If so, will this hamper your gains, lead to about the same gains so not necesaary, or improve your gains?
To clarify, I think discussing training volume independently of training load is a mistake. Yes, total training volume affects total training load and is easier to quantify, but I think what we’re really discussing is how much training load does someone need to see maximal results…in this case, hypertrophy.
I think that at any given time, there is a maximal training load for an individual. Going above or below this would subsequently generate worse results. I don’t think training load is “fully experienced” over 1-week, but more likely many weeks.
In this view, we’d want to achieve the maximum training load over the course of ~ a month to drive maximal results. I do not think training frequency is likely to alter this directly unless it affects volume and/or fatigue. There’s likely some tipping point where more volume in a single session offers little extra benefit. According to the research, this may be ~ 10 sets for a give muscle group. Although this data is not particularly convincing, it’d be reasonable for people to split their training up into more days once achieving this level of volume in a single session.
I cannot comment on whether you would benefit from more training volume (and training load) based on what you’re currently doing, as it may outstrip your recovery resources.