Training Frequency

"The more quality work you do in training, the more your whole body – muscles, nerves, organs, everything – experiences a demand to adapt.

These adaptations lay the base for future peaks in strength.

You can tolerate harder training, even as the training itself builds strength. Volume is part of the answer but not, by itself, the goal.

A lifter training with 50,000 pounds each week can split it over two workouts for 25,000 pounds each day – sustainable, but each of those monster sessions leaves him a wreck for several days.

There’s a limit to how much you can do in a single workout, and even if you have time for two to three hours of training, long and volume-heavy workouts aren’t always ideal. But divide that over five workouts and now he’s only handling 10,000 pounds each session.

Much shorter sessions, much easier on recovery from day to day. Training frequency lets you break up those long sessions into manageable bites, and the volume becomes a consequence of regular practice.

With months and years of gradual improvements, this lifter will be handling far higher net volume – tonnage per week – than he ever could in one or two sessions.

More workouts mean more opportunities to practice under weights without the boredom and exhaustion of three-hour workouts.

You get in shape through sheer repetition and consistency. Strength is about skill, teaching your brain how to handle both a movement and a maximum weight, but it's also about building your body’s capacities."

- Matt Perryman from Squat Everyday