Strength Training Frequency: The Foundation of Results

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to there is a Method to the Madness.
My name is Rob Maxwell and I'man exercise physiologist and
personal trainer.
I am the owner of Maxwell'sFitness Programs and I've been
in business since 1994.
The purpose of this podcast isto get to the real deal of what
really works and, mostimportantly, why things work.

(00:21):
Hence the name.
There is a method to themadness.
Before I get to today's show, Iwant to thank Jonathan and Lynn
Gildan of the Gildan Group atRealty Pros.
They are committed to providingthe highest level of customer
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Why don't you give them a shoutand figure out what your home
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386-451-2412.

(00:44):
386-451-2412.
Hello everybody, let's talkabout some fitness this morning.
Specifically, let's talk aboutsome strength, some strength
training.
I was thinking this morningabout frequency with strength

(01:05):
training and just how importantit is, not in the sense of more
is better, but what a very, veryimportant thing it is to talk
about the baseline, to talkabout the threshold.
So that's what I am going totalk about today, all right.

(01:29):
So let me back up just for asecond and talk briefly about
what the acute program variablesare for strength training.
Coup program variables are allof the different things that we
need to put together to have asuccessful workout program, and

(01:53):
frequency happens to be one ofthem.
The American College of SportsMedicine and some other
organizations uses the FITTacronym to help us with that,
which is F-I-T-T, and they'veadded some letters which I will
talk about.
But the FIT acronym stands forfrequency, intensity, time and

(02:20):
type.
So that helps us with the acuteprogram variables to get an
idea of how to structure anykind of exercise.
And today, specifically, we aretalking about strength training
.
So, as you see, frequency isthe first one and I would say

(02:41):
it's the most important, becauseif we don't meet the minimal
there, we're not going to getany benefits and none of the
others matter at all.
The second letter is Iintensity.

(03:08):
Close you get to muscularfailure or what is called
volitional fatigue, which areboth essentially the same thing.
Failure means that literallyduring your set you can't move
the load anymore.
Volitional fatigue means thatyou can complete the rep you're
on, but you will not be able tocomplete another rep afterwards.
They're both basically the samething.
That's the true way to measureintensity in strength training,

(03:30):
in other words, how hard Somepeople will use load as the
intensity.
For example, they might saythat 75% of the one rep max is
going to be the intensity thatwe use.
So that would be the load andthat's okay, but that doesn't
really change the intensity byitself.

(03:51):
Does it Like, let's say, 75% ofa hundred pounds is 75.
Well, you might be able to movethat one time or 20 times, and
obviously moving that same load20 times versus one is more
intense.
So I don't agree when somepeople, some experts, say use

(04:15):
load, because it's really nottrue.
So intensity comes back to howclose you get to hitting
volitional fatigue or muscularfailure.
Time for strength training isgoing to be volume, which is
going to be the amount ofexercises, the amount of sets

(04:36):
and the amount of repetitions.
That would be all the volume,in other words the, how much,
the frequency is how often, theintensity is how hard and the
time or volume is how much.
And then finally, the last Ttype stands for type, which

(04:57):
means mode, which means what areyou going to do to get there?
So, in other words, are yougoing to use body weight
exercises?
Or I should say, should you use, or should you use selectorized
machines?
Should you use free weights?
I mean the answer to that isyou should really use all of it
or you should use what you haveaccessible to you, all right, so

(05:19):
that one's kind of like theeasiest one.
So we're talking aboutfrequency, and without frequency
the other ones don't matter,right?
So let me talk to you aboutwhat the research says about
frequency.
Now, the experts which you know,I tend to follow, like the
people that have done thestudies, what we know about

(05:41):
strength training.
They talk about how many timesper week each muscle group needs
to be trained.
That doesn't mean they'readvocating for a split routine,
which means that you are doingdifferent muscle groups or
different exercises per day, andthen on another day doing
different muscle groups ordifferent exercises.

(06:02):
No, they're not advocating that.
Different muscle groups ordifferent exercises no, they're
not advocating that.
What's kind of cool is they'relike, we don't care.
Like frequency is frequency.
As far as split routine versusfull body or doing all of your
exercise or your strengthexercise at one time is
concerned, that's all a matterof the volume.
That's like how many exercisesare you doing really?

(06:24):
A matter of the volume, that'slike how many exercises are you
doing really?
And that's a whole, nothertopic.
But frequency doesn't get intothat.
What we do know is each majormuscle group and there are 11
major muscle groups need to betrained two to three times per
week.
To be trained two to threetimes per week, end of story.

(06:55):
Two to three times per week,with the mode or median being
two times.
So that means you can do twofull body strength training
sessions per week and you'redoing what you need to do.
Or you can train six days perweek, splitting up your body,
doing each major muscle grouptwo times per week.

(07:18):
It really doesn't matter.
Like one isn't better than theother.
I don't care what yourinfluencers tell you.
That is a matter of style andwhat you like to do.
I own a gym and I also have asmall home gym, so I have access

(07:38):
to weight training and I liketo weight train.
So oftentimes I will split itup for time considerations.
My workouts are my personalworkouts are pretty brief, they
are not long, so I will split itup Oftentimes, not because it's

(07:58):
better, but because I haveaccess to it and I am here
anyway, and if I have a littlebreak in the day where I'm not
training a client or I'm notworking on an email or I'm not
making a podcast or I'm notdoing any of the other duties I
have, or even if I do, sometimesI'd rather just take 20 minutes

(08:19):
and do a workout, do somestrength training.
So I will split it up, notbecause it's better.
We need to understand that.
But we also have to understandthe main point of this podcast.
If we don't hit the frequency oftwo times per week, each muscle

(08:41):
group so let's just keep itsimple.
Stupid Two full body workoutsper week we are not getting the
benefits to get any better.
Okay, I'm going to break itdown for you what the research
says.
Here's what it says.
Let's say you have a frequencyof one time per week.

(09:02):
You hit one workout per week.
Research shows that's enough tomaintain after you have built
your fitness.
You can maintain that for maybea couple of months.
You can hit it one time perweek.
You're not going to slide toofar backwards in a couple months

(09:24):
.
That's great.
That's what we know about afrequency of one time per week.
A frequency of two times perweek is going to grant you 95%
of the benefits of three timesper week.
All right, we're talking fullbody workouts.

(09:44):
We know that.
Okay, two seems to be the realmagic number.
All right, three times per week.
Now we're talking strengthtraining.
Three times per week gives youmaximal benefit for most people,
but only 5% better than twotimes per week, okay.

(10:09):
So then you have to look at thepoint of diminishing returns
and go well, if I'm reallygetting better, cause you are
two times per week, you'regetting better.
Remember, one time per week iswhen you're not, you're just
kind of maintaining, so you haveto go.
If I'm getting most of thebenefits and I'm in a really

(10:29):
important job and I've, you know, I got three kids and I got
this it makes more sense for methat I go two times per week.
Right, exactly, I'd say themajority of our clients come two
times per week.
Then what about the?
I'd say the majority of ourclients come two times per week.
Then what about the person thatsays but I like going three
times per week?
That's fine too.
Remember it is still beneficialand we do have some people come

(10:51):
here three times per week.
We have to remember that a lotof them are also doing some
cardio, and cardio is differentCardio the threshold is at least
three times per week for cardio, whole different animal.
Like two times per week forcardio is not going to create
the adaptations.
It is for strength training,all right, two times per week

(11:13):
for cardio is not.
It's not.
It's going to barely reallyeven maintain you.
So that's a whole differentanimal and that's for another
day.
But strength training, wise,two times per week is the
threshold we need.
Three times per week for, youknow, some of our clients, for
example, this is the exercisethat they get and then they

(11:34):
might play some pickleball, theymight walk a little on their
own.
But this is it so for them,because they know themselves and
they know they're not going todo it without an appointment.
And there's no shame in that,because you know, asking for
help is an absolute strength.
It is not a weakness, it'sreally a weakness to think you

(11:54):
got it on your own and then youdon't do it Like.
Isn't that a weakness?
And if you have ever been on ateam which I think all of us
have, whether it be a team insports, a team in business, a
team in our job, a team in ourfamily, don't we kind of like
really get annoyed with thatfamily member or teammate or
office mate who, like, alwayssays they got this, never asked

(12:17):
for help, and then they don't doit, like they got this, never
ask for help and then they don'tdo it.
It's a weakness to not ask forhelp.
I can't say that enough.
So I don't want anybody to feelbad that they're asking for help
, whether it be with a trainerfor accountability, with a
psychologist to help them withsome of their mental health
problems or issues, or atherapist.

(12:40):
I mean God, I do all of it.
I mean it's all good, right.
I mean asking for help is agreat thing, right.
It makes you strong, it doesn'tmake you weak.
So I just wanted to put thatout there, because I hear that
sometimes from people Shouldn'tI do this on my own?
I'm like why?
I mean, are you going to, areyou going to do all that you

(13:03):
need to do?
No, ok, so then your answer isno.
I mean you know we all haveareas where we're good and we
need help.
You know we're.
We all have areas where we'rethe ones helping and we all have
areas where you know we'rebeing helped.
I think so anyway.
So Back to frequency.
The real point is, if you're notdoing two days a week of
strength training, you almostare wasting your time.

(13:25):
You need to figure out how todo it and then, of course, then
we get into the other issues ofintensity.
Sure, all that, but none ofthat matters if you're not
showing up.
None of that matters if you arenot getting it done Right, if
you are not getting it doneright.
So, like here's an example itis Tuesday morning for me I
don't know when you're listeningto this, but I have a client

(13:48):
every Tuesday morning at 645,seven o'clock basically, and
they've been coming to me.
They might be the longest oneson the schedule now.
They might be the longest onesgoing right now.
They go back well over 20something years when I was in
the flying.
I know that they were comingthen.

(14:08):
That's when they startedactually, so probably around 96.
Jeez God, I've been doing thisa long time.
So, yeah, so they've beencoming back that long.
So early on he came by himselftwice a week because he, you
know, really needed to get backin shape.
He was in dire straits.
And then after a while he's youknow, he's a fit, pretty strong

(14:32):
guy.
He needed some help.
After a while he startedbringing his spouse, and you
know he likes to go to the gym.
So what he decided for him washe was going to come to me one
time a week to get an extra push, which he does for sure, and
you know.
So accountability, you know forhim that one week, one time a

(14:53):
week schedule is going to workreally good for accountability.
And you know the extra push andask questions when he needed it
, just to make sure he wasstaying on top of things.
And then he was going to hitthe gym at least one other time
and he said preferably a thirdtime.
Now that works fine.
You know why?
Because he does it.
Since I've known him he has goneto and now his spouse goes to a

(15:17):
second gym.
They move their second gymaround quite a bit.
Whatever who cares right goesto a second gym.
They move their second gymaround quite a bit.
You know, whatever who caresright, I mean to me I look at
most of the gyms as likeequipment rental places, right,
I mean, that's what we're usingthem for, and if they have nice
equipment, then decent hours andprice.
I suppose I don't think hecares much about that.
But you know, whatever he wantsthe equipment, but it works.

(15:39):
So you know, when I say you gotto work out two times per week,
it's not, like you know, withyour trainer.
I mean that's great, somepeople are not going to do it
like him on their own.
But you just got to get it intwo times per week, man, you
just have to.
I mean strength training is soimportant.
I mean so important, I mean itis so critical.

(16:08):
I have a friend who is deep intotriathlon.
She's really competitive andshe's biking 50 something miles
on her long day.
She's running 11 to 13 miles onher long day.
She's swimming three times perweek, one of them in the ocean,
and then running track and doingall these things.
So her schedule is already full.
Yet she does not skip herstrength training two times per

(16:30):
week.
I think she does it on Mondaysand Wednesdays.
Does not skip because it is soimportant.
She understands that this isthe way to keep the skeleton
strong, you know, to keep themuscles on the body, cause as we
age we lose muscle and cardiodoes not maintain the muscle.
If we do too much cardio itactually eats the muscle.

(16:53):
I'm not saying I'm againstcardio.
I love cardio.
I ran this morning.
I ran most days, most morningsin the week, but I just try and
train to keep up the muscle mass.
It is so critical and she getsit.
So she does it after a day'swork.
She makes sure that she goes toher facility and strength
trains full body a couple oftimes per week.

(17:15):
Does not miss even when she'stired.
So we have to make it work.
If we travel a lot, we've stillgot to do it.
Because I'm going to leave youwith this very startling fact we
begin to atrophy after 96 hours.
96 hours, okay, Whisper alittle.

(17:40):
I learned that when I taught,because it makes people listen.
96 hours, that's four days.
We begin to atrophy.
That doesn't mean you take your21 inch Cobra Python arms like
Arnold Schwarzenegger, bringthem all the way down to 13
inches after four days.
No, but it does mean that webegin the process.

(18:02):
So if we're atrophying afterfour days which is why one day a
week is only enough to maintain, because we hit it again, we
fight off the atrophy and thenit starts the process again.
So if we're not hitting afrequency of two days per week,
we are starting to atrophy andwe atrophy after 96 hours.

(18:25):
We have to stay with it.
So if we travel, if we get busy, we have to find a way to get
in our necessary strengthtraining.
What is our necessary strengthtraining?
Again, the acute programvariables make it very simple
for us All the major musclegroups so your thighs, your

(18:48):
torso, your arms, your shoulders, your core need to be trained
every two to three days per week.
Have to, or they're going toatrophy.
How are you going to make thathappen?
Out of all the acute programvariables, if we don't get the
first one, the frequency, thereis no way we're getting the

(19:12):
other three.
Thank you for listening totoday's program.
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