What is the best training frequency for growth? This is a question I get asked a lot. So let’s look at this.
I am in this discussion only going to look at the male 40 and over and what training frequency works best for him.
A further assumption is that we talk here about males, who’s primary goal is about adding shape and muscle to their body. Thus we are NOT talking about the marathon runner doing just cardio! We are talking about a guy over 40 who hits the gym to do resistance training.
Last assumption is that we are not alking about a guy who has never trained in his life. Because for such a guy the first 3 months is a complete different approach to the guy who is already fully into his training regime.
So now that we have defined the target audience let’s move forward.
PROBLEMATIC training frequencies:
Anything less than 3 days a week training will put you into severe risk for injury territory. The amount of days is just too little to adequately keep the muscles, tendons and joints flexible and strong enough for intense training. You chances for hurting yourself badly is very, very high. 1 or 2 days training a week does NOT prepare the body sufficient for intense training full stop. If that is the only amount of days that you can train, well then I say no intense resistance training but only bodyweight exercises…and even that can result in a damaged tendon.
Optimal MAINTENANCE training frequency:
Many guys go through a difficult work related period where time is limited and then they just want to be able to maintain size and definition. That can be done with good success of training 3 days a week but not (!) 3 days in a row and the 4 days off. The 3 days must be spaced with one open day inbetween each training day. The stimulation this apply to the body is good enough for maintaining but not for growth. It is also outside the danger territory as discussed above.
Optimal training frequency for MUSCLE GROWTH:
Now we are talking business. Remember you are over 40, so thinking you can train 6 or 7 times a day as some of these youngsters do (who are most of the time in steroids anyways!) is definitely NOT going to work. Training anything more than 5 days will have dire consequences for your muscle building efforts. It will leave waaay to little time for the older body to recover and built muscle effectively and can litterrally result in smaller muscles. I’ve seen it happen over and over.
An over 40 guy cannot train more than 5 days a week if he is not using steroids – full stop.
So the max amount of training for a 40 to 55 y/o is 5 days a week.
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For guys over 55 yrs I suggest not more than 4 days a week, simply because with the amount of testosterone and HGH in the body (which is a step lower than that of a 40-55 y/o) he need more recovery time and more time for the muscles to grow before it is punished again in the gym.
The important part is to remember, muscles do NOT grow in gym. You simply send a signal to them that they must grow because they are not coping with the workload. The growth happen while you rest and sleep and NOT training. But that only happens when the body is fed correctly.
So there you have it…I am 53 right now and for me the optimal training frequency is 5 days a week. My actual routine is mostly just 4 days but now and then I would throw in the 5th day. There is just no way my body will be able to cope with 6 or 7 days!
If you want my customized ADVANCED SYSTEM II that covers this and provide a complete blueprint for your over 40 body transformation, have a look here: https://gertlouw.com/my-transformation-secrets/
Had quite a few requests to do an article for youngsters who want to build muscle.
Few things are so healthy looking than a young guy with a good aesthetic looking physique!
So as a young guy…what must you do to grow and what must you avoid? (under 16 do preferably just body resistance exercises not weights.)
I am going to give you a quick and easy guide.
The easiest way is to look at what to avoid since this will tell you by implication what to do. Things to avoid is things that will limit muscle growth and even results in smaller muscles! Many guys into their 30’s and even 40’s never learn these basic muscle building errors and they can never understand why they do not put on size. LEARN! By cutting this out of your gym/lifestyle will ensure you create an optimal environment for growth and fat loss from a young age.
15 THINGS TO AVOID by a youngster (over 16) who want to grow muscles:
Overtraining – you cannot train more than 6 days a week. Remember each of these sessions is going to be intense and very hard on the body. The body need at least 1 preferably 2 days a week to recover and build.
Too long training sessions. Muscles do NOT grow in gym. They actually getting torn down and hurt and literally become smaller. In gym is only where you STIMULATE the muscle for growth. Healing and repair must first occur before growth sets in. Never train a muscle still sore from previous workout. Growth occurs outside while your rest and recover. So do not spend more than 60 minutes in gym!
Junk food! What you eat is what you will be. Outside the gym your muscles need the right food to grow…junk food is NOT it!
Too little food. The muscles cannot (!) grow if the body thinks it is in a famine environment…then your body will use the muscles for energy and go catabolic (equals smaller muscles) and only as a last resort use the fat storage. You must eat enough food to grow and to lose fat!
Too little sleep! The most important ingredient to help muscles grow is getting in enough sleep. You cannot expect muscles to grow with just 2-3 hours sleep a night. At least 6-8 hours of solid sleep.
Bad Form – bad form or technique will not stimulate growth and will open the door for serious injury. NEVER throw a weight! Slow controlled movements.
Showing off in gym. The sooner you get the ego under control the sooner you will start growing. NEVER show off. Lift the weight that you can manage in a controlled fashion. You WILL hurt yourself showing off and you will make your name an ass!
Listen to everything everyone says in gym and taking it for the gospel! Be carefull what you believe and to whom you listen. Verify the facts before following someone’s suggestion or trying something new. VERIFY! VERIFY! VERIFY!
Training with the wrong partner. Having a training partner not focused will seriously hamper your success. The training partner you choose must add to your success not take away!
Exercise technique/breathing. Learn to breathe correctly. Positive and negative moves of an exercise must be equal speed. Try and squeeze the muscle when reaching the top of the move.
Good bodies are NEVER created through exercise machines. They are created by free weights. Why? Well very simple: free weights uses and activates all the stabilization muscles which are crucial for a balanced looking aesthetic physique. Machines bypass all these stabilization muscles and result in an unbalanced muscle development…full stop!
Do not trust on supplements to be the answer. VERY FEW supplements actually work. Consider only the following: Creatine, Whey protein, BCAA’s, L-glutamine and maybe a caffeine pill while training. The rest is just money down and empty pit!
Anabolics is not a good idea, especially for a youngster. You got more than enough testosterone and HGH in your veins. USE IT! Using anabolics WILL result in smaller balls and it WILL result in impotence and no desire for sex…just for starters. You really, REALLY need to know what you are doing venturing this road and if you MUST do it, only after you had your kids!
Alcohol! Want a rippling 6-pack? Well this is NOT going to happen with regular consumption of alcohol. Keep it to one day a week and NOT more than 500ml of wine or the equivalent. Alcohol in males create a fat layer around the internal organs and result in a bloated looking tummy which is very difficult to get away. No good body is ever build on regular alcohol consumption no matter what the Hollywood perception is!
Training too light. If you do not stimulate the muscle for growth, no growth will occur. Stimulation only happen when the muscle is challenged. One sure way to do this is to train regularly to absolute muscle failure! The muscle must have at the very least a slight ache the next day…that is a sign that you have done a good job!
I have a blueprint system developed for young guys to create the environment for growth and make optimal use of the high testosterone and HGH levels…have a look here: https://gertlouw.com/my-transformation-secrets/
After many requests I finally made a video on my building phase training program. This is the program I follow to add maximum muscle mass.
No fancy stuff, hardcore and sticking to the basics with lots of compound moves.
I train only 4 days a week due to the heavy intensity lifting.
My Training days are Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.
My rest days are Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays.
Before every training session I will do a 10 min warm-up with light weights.
EVERY SET MUST FINISH IN MUSCLE FAILURE ON THE LAST REP OF THE SET – key to growth!
Cardio? Well what you must accept is that cardio is a MUSCLE KILLER!
Your muscle size will be directly equivalent to the amount of cardio you do. More cardio = smaller muscles no matter how good you train or diet.
So in the building phase I severely limit cardio (in fact I am not doing any!).
For maximum muscle growth the bodybuilder alternate his training and diets structures between a cutting phase and building phase.
These phases typically lasts about between 3-6 month although 3 months seems to be the best approach as that allows for optimal tendon growth and recovery when the phases are alternated.
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The building phase focuses on extreme heavy lifting with low reps (6-8 per set) while to cutting phase allows for tendon healing and strengthening with much lower weights and higher reps (15-20).
This video will focus on the diet structure most suited for a building phase.
Since the purpose of the building phase is to add as much lean muscle growth as possible it will have an obvious calorie increase over the cutting diet. The higher your body fat the easier your body can add muscle growth.
However it is not as simple as it sounds.
There are three different approaches.
A – try to add lean muscle growth while staying ripped with a body fat levels about 6%.
B – Add lean muscle growth while increasing the body fat to a 8-9% body fat range.
C – Add lean muscle growth while increasing body fat to the 12-15% range.
Now, no matter who tells you what, groups A and C can ONLY be successfully achieved with anabolic steroids and banned substances. Effective muscle growth cannot be obtained with a 6% body fat approach without external help. Yes you might be able to add a little lean mass but not effective mass (2-5kg).
The same goes for group C – it is easy to increase body fat levels to 12-15% but once you’ve finished with the building phase to try to bring down those levels to a ripped 4-5% is VERY difficult and close to impossible in a 3 months period. And for those that get it done within that period, well, they lose nearly all the muscle gained due to the strict diet that needs to be applied to get the body fat levels down. Thus why nearly all in this group resort to anabolics to protect the muscle while shredding the fat to get down to that 4-5% body fat levels.
If you want to venture a non-anabolic route and stay as natural as possible, there is only but one way to do the building and that is to target your building phase diet to reach body fat levels of 8, max 9%.
This will allow you to shed your body fat successfully in the 3 month cutting period down to 4-5% for a ripped look and to hold on to at least 80% of your hard-earned muscle.
This is where my diet is focused.
You will see from my cutting diet in an earlier video/post that my calorie intake has now increased with 500 calories.
But the critical aspect of any cutting and building diet remains, you HAVE to check your progress every 14 days with a weigh-in, fat calipers measurements and tape measurements. This is to make sure that your diet calories are correct and not adding uncontrollable fat. The moment you reached the 8-9% body fat you must lower the calories slightly again and stay within that range for the next total period of 3 months.
In this video I discussed the routine I am currently applying for bicep and tricep growth when I am on my 3-month cutting phase.
Cutting phase implies the process of bringing bodyfat down to enhance the muscled ripped look while keeping muscle size or even slightly increasing it.
In short, the arm routine for the cutting phase involves performing two huge super sets: Super Set One and Super Set Two.
SUPER SET ONE
Super Set One consists of a bicep exercise (20 reps) + tricep exercise (20 reps) +bicep exercise (20 reps) performed back to back with no resting in between.
When you completed above set for Super Set One, rest for 3 minutes and repeat Super Set One for a total of three times.
SLOW (!) and very CONTROLLED (!) movements during every rep.
Visualize the target muscle during each rep in your head and get a very focused “mind muscle” connection. Feel only the target muscle work to perform the movement.
During all triceps and bicep exercises, keep the elbows as stationary as possible to make sure that only the bicep do the lifting. The more you move the elbows the more involved the shoulders (and to lesser extend pecs and back) become to lift the weight.
Use full range of motion for exercises, meaning widest possible angle to make sure that the whole bicep/tricep muscle gets a workout.
You MUST (!) fail with each exercise on the 20th (last) rep of each set. [very important – key principle for growth]
When finished with 3 x Super Set One, stretch for 5 minutes to relax muscles (perform various stretching exercises involving the biceps, triceps and shoulders).
This not only help the muscle recover better but also enhances blood flow plus it helps keeping the veins more elastic and prevent hardening of arteries to and extent. It is also believed to be an important factor in obtaining aesthetic looking muscles.
SUPER SET TWO (the same as above with the following differences)
Perform 3 different exercises (biceps + triceps +biceps) than those you did in Super Set One.
When finished with 3 x Super Set TWO, stretch for 5 minutes to relax muscles (perform various stretching exercises involving the biceps, triceps and shoulders).
End of your routine with 15-20 minutes of moderate cardio.
Be wary of too much cardio. Cardio is a muscle size killer. You cannot expect to have big muscle size and do a lot of cardio. The two goes against each other.
If you have body fat you want to get rid of you should do that via fine tuning your diet and not through excessive cardio.
Supplements?
Before training (stick to basics don’t waste your money on fancy stuff!):
45 minutes before training 8 tablets BCAA’s (prevent a catabolic state during training)
45 minutes before training 5g L-Glutamine
After training:
Immediately after training eat 1 apple or banana.
Immediately after the apple/banana drink a serving fast absorption whey protein.
1-2 hours after training eat a small fat-free meal containing a decent protein serving.
