training body parts twice a week for nats ?!

[lukx]

I've been working out for few years now, using different splits but never tried twice a week routine like old school bodybuilding used to do it. I started to think more and more about it after watching Ric Draisin's Corner. he's still repeating that back than there wasn't that much of drugs and guys were training twice a week and that it's optimal. Right now I'm training each bodypart every 8 days. And was thinking to try twice a week. Of course I will lower the volume a bit but I think especially while cutting for summer it might give nice tone to the muscles rather than 8 days rests. What are you're opinions on that topic?

[NATURAL-1987]

Honestly....the only muscle group I train 2x week is calves and thats because they're an area that needs special attention and get worked all day from walking on them. The way I train I need time to recover because I beat the crap out of the muscle and it is usually sore 4 days after. If I was hitting everything twice a week that would mean I'd have to train a bodypart that is already sore from the previous workout and not recovered. Therefore I think I would get catabolic. However, everyone is different, I am hungry for my pro card and kill it in the gym to make sure I will not be able to look back and think I could have pushed myself through more pain. In your case we are talking about looking good for summer which I have been hearing a lot lately. As far as doing "higher volume and might give the muscles a nice tone", if you want to look lean its all about diet and cardio. My last show I was the leanest I had ever been but still lifted 6-10 rep range through the last day of training. If I were you I would be thinking its time for a change of pace for your split as well and follow the Yates style. 4 day split, 2 days train, 1 day off. Also because you want to look leaner for summer hit the cardio and eat a lot of tilapia and broccoli. Hope you reach your goals.

[IL WNBF Pro]

You may want to look up Layne's PHAT program. Seriously is pretty decent. Thats the one that fltallpaul uses....(he has a sticky - errr, that sounds bad)...

Its a matter of volume and intensity.

[lukx]

Honestly....the only muscle group I train 2x week is calves and thats because they're an area that needs special attention and get worked all day from walking on them. The way I train I need time to recover because I beat the crap out of the muscle and it is usually sore 4 days after. If I was hitting everything twice a week that would mean I'd have to train a bodypart that is already sore from the previous workout and not recovered. Therefore I think I would get catabolic. However, everyone is different, I am hungry for my pro card and kill it in the gym to make sure I will not be able to look back and think I could have pushed myself through more pain. In your case we are talking about looking good for summer which I have been hearing a lot lately. As far as doing "higher volume and might give the muscles a nice tone", if you want to look lean its all about diet and cardio. My last show I was the leanest I had ever been but still lifted 6-10 rep range through the last day of training. If I were you I would be thinking its time for a change of pace for your split as well and follow the Yates style. 4 day split, 2 days train, 1 day off. Also because you want to look leaner for summer hit the cardio and eat a lot of tilapia and broccoli. Hope you reach your goals.

Diet is there and 5 days a week in the morning cardio so I'm cutting nicely. I was just thinking that "old school" guys have more achievable look than today PROS so maybe they were doing something right without using that much gear or not at all as Ric is saying.

[the mighty stu]

I certainly think switching to a 2x/8days approach, especially if you've been following a more traditional, less frequency approach for a while, should yield some gains. As you mentioned, you will have to address/adjust the volume per session accordingly, but all else being equal (diet, sleep etc), should be a nice change,.. and change, more often than not, means results :)

S

[Muscle Marc]

This is something I have been considering myself. I saw Ric's video where he discussed this and I also remember an episode of HMR where John Brown reckoned that bodybuilders now didn't train enough. He used the example that if you trained once per week, every week, that you would only be training each muscle 52 times a year and that wasn't enough. The theory of that makes sense, however I don't know if I'd have recovered in time for the next workout and thus wouldn't be able to generate sufficient intensity.
There's also that old arguement that the bodybuilders of old were all overtrained from training so much and that had they cut back, they might have grown more. I personally would say to try training each muscle twice a week and see how it works for you. If it just leaves you feeling tired and run down, you know it's not for you and can go back to your regular split. Bodybuilding is trial and error after all.

[Chris Pearce]

Like Muscle Marc said, it's a trial and error sport. Give it a try and see if it works for you... tailor you workouts according to how your body responds to the variance in stimulation.

For me, I'm too sore to target the same muscle group twice a week. Some people, like me, just can't recover fast enough. For instance, I did quads and hams on Wed., today is Sunday, and I'm still sore.

[lukx]

I certainly think switching to a 2x/8days approach, especially if you've been following a more traditional, less frequency approach for a while, should yield some gains. As you mentioned, you will have to address/adjust the volume per session accordingly, but all else being equal (diet, sleep etc), should be a nice change,.. and change, more often than not, means results :)

S

the might, what do you mean saying 2x/8days ? I was thinking rather like:
Monday: chest /back
Tuesday: shoulders / arms
Wednesday: legs
Thursday chest/back
Friday: shoulders / arms
Saturday: legs

How would you split 2x/8 days?

[MaxC]

2x/8days would be 3 on 1 off. YOu could keep what you've got with
day 1: chest and back
day 2: legs
day 3: shoulders and arms
day 4: off. Then repeat. The point is that you need to rest the body at some point, and noone said you had to only do it on the weekend. You don't have to be tied to a 7 day schedule. Base it on how long it is taking you to recuperate. Often, once you get in good shape you may find that it takes between 3-5 days for a major muscle group to recover, but not quite 7, and during that interim you can undergo some detraining.

[lukx]

2x/8days would be 3 on 1 off. YOu could keep what you've got with
day 1: chest and back
day 2: legs
day 3: shoulders and arms
day 4: off. Then repeat. The point is that you need to rest the body at some point, and noone said you had to only do it on the weekend. You don't have to be tied to a 7 day schedule. Base it on how long it is taking you to recuperate. Often, once you get in good shape you may find that it takes between 3-5 days for a major muscle group to recover, but not quite 7, and during that interim you can undergo some detraining.

yeah, the only problem is that gyms in my town are closed on Sundays :)

[Lann1011]

I hit my problem areas twice a week.. really brought in my calves.. being Natural, It is the only way I can get them it.. hit him hard twice..

Course I am fitness no BB'er

[AVBG]

No one thing will work for everybody so yeah give it a go see what happens.. I train weak bodyparts twice a week (delts) to keep my body guessing.

[IL WNBF Pro]

Layne has consistently said that it takes the body a few weeks to adapt to some training systems. Think about this....on his power days...he might only do 5 sets of squats (low rep)...a hamstring exercise...maybe another accessory movement...then some calves (again, low volume)....say thats sunday....he will hit legs on maybe Thursday with 2 - 3 exercises, maybe 4 - 5 sets each, stopping 1 - 2 reps shy of failure. He reduces rest period between sets and increases intensity (supersets, etc)

I will be starting a journal next week as I start prepping myself for the Pro Masters in October. I will run a 2x/wk split for about 6 - 8 weeks....then traditional split for 4 weeks. Between the two routines I will be doing a "deload"

[MusclesMarinara]

before this split i hit every bodypart in 8 days (3 on, 1 off-3 on, 1 off)... i moved to more volume so now im doing every bodypart in 10 days (4 on, 1 off-4 on, 1 off).

I like it.

[IL WNBF Pro]

Actually let me clarify....what I wrote as far as what Layne "does" is probably a major generalization. He doesnt give out specifics of what he does...just ideas. I would imagine he does so because he doesnt want people to look at it and go "ok, I will do what he does and then I will get the exact same results". I know he is VERY anti-cookie cutter.

Personally, I think 4 on, 1 off is a tad much for a natural....again, just my OPINION.

[rex]

I am a fan of 2x/week training. I have had much better progress on 2x/week than traditional bb training. Like others have already said, you have to adjust your volume (I do about 50 reps total per session for large body parts and around 30 reps total for smaller body parts, you can break this up into whatever rep scheme you want. For example 5x5 for one exercise and 3x8 for another=49 total reps per training session). Check out bodyrecomposition.com for a lot of good articles on the subject by Lyle Mcdonald .

[IL WNBF Pro]

Rex....shoot an example of your workout. I have read on Iron Addicts about the premise of counting total sets. Just curious how you have laid it out.

[HammerStrength12]

I train calves 2x a week

[rex]

Rex....shoot an example of your workout. I have read on Iron Addicts about the premise of counting total sets. Just curious how you have laid it out.

I like to pick a couple body parts to specialize. For the specialization body parts I perform a total of 50-60 reps, the rest of the body parts trained during that session are kept at maintenance weights with 3 sets of 8.

For example a typical upper body session specializing Lats:
1st session:
Dumbell row 5x5 or 4x6 =total of 24-25 reps
Lat pulldown 3x8-10=total of 24-30 reps
db incline press 3x8= 24 reps maintenance
tricep extension 3x8= 24 reps maintenance (normally I would suggest doing bicep curls next to give the triceps a rest before extensions, but my tris are lagging a bit so I don't like giving them much of a break)
db bicep curl 3x8= 24 reps maintenance
shoulder later raise 3x8-12= 24-36 reps maintenance

For the 2nd upper body session I will flip flop the order and rep scheme of the db rows and the pulldowns. So 5x5 or 4x6 for the pulldowns and 3x8 for the db rows.

Most of my routine is derived from Lyle McDonalds generic bulking routine and specialization routines, but I tweak it to improve my weaknesses.

[inkedleo88]

I'm pretty new to the bodybuilding style of lifting, but the past few months I have been throwing in a body part twice a week here and there. I'll hit legs pretty heavy on monday and lighter, more stretch and more reps on friday or saturday. Then I'll do the same thing for shoulders 2 weeks later. Seems to be working. I didn't have hamstrings or triceps a little over a year ago and they are both very visible now

[Iron8]

I've done it both ways. once a week and twice a week. I think they both are good ideas to use as a change of pace.....Like others have said just cut back on volume when your doing it twice a week, and pick back up on volume when once.

[Mrfitness81]

Sometimes I will hit everything twice a week, sometimes only a week. Everything works for while.

I currently do a modified 6 day split combining power/hypertrophy, I train 4 days per week so that means every week at least one body part gets hit twice a week. The following week a different muscle group will be hit twice.


__________________________________________________ ________
www.trainwithsklayne.co.uk

[fltallpaul]

I've been working out for few years now, using different splits but never tried twice a week routine like old school bodybuilding used to do it. I started to think more and more about it after watching Ric Draisin's Corner. he's still repeating that back than there wasn't that much of drugs and guys were training twice a week and that it's optimal. Right now I'm training each bodypart every 8 days. And was thinking to try twice a week. Of course I will lower the volume a bit but I think especially while cutting for summer it might give nice tone to the muscles rather than 8 days rests. What are you're opinions on that topic?


I began using Layne's Power\Hypertrophy split a few years ago for this very reason. I always felt I maintained with once a week workouts and made the best progress when really hitting a part every 3-5 days. Layne's split allows you to hit a muscle twice a week without over doing it. Power days are low volume with linear perdiodization built in and hypertrophy days are higher rep days when you can use techniques like drop sets, super sets or rest pause.

Here is my split, ofcourse the details are the property of Layne so I can't hand over the plan but you can contact him at [email protected] for more details.

Mon - Upper Heavy
Tues - Lower Heavy
Wed - Rest of Cardio
Thursday - Back\Chest Hypertrophy
Friday - Legs Hypertrophy
Saturday - Shoulders\Arms Hypertrophy
Sunday - Rest or Cardio

[Tommyknocker]

Keep a training log. Document weight gains and losses, how muscles feel, and supplements. What works for me will be different than what works for you.