Fitness Pill #1: How many times a week should I train?
Two, three or four days a week — what's optimal for muscle growth, and how to choose based on your real life.
This is a question that many of our clients and potential clients often ask.
As is often the case, the answer is: it depends. If you’re reading this, you’re likely interested in building muscle — whether to lose weight, improve your physique, become healthier, or simply to get stronger.
When the goal is muscle growth, you can achieve optimal results by training 2, 3, or 4 days a week, depending on your personal circumstances. The most important thing is to train consistently; that is, to complete your sessions every week, no matter what happens around you. If you can only train 2 days a week, commit to that frequency, and you will still see results.
2 Days a Week: If you have a very stressful life, with children or other responsibilities that prevent you from training more days, this frequency is optimal for muscle growth according to scientific research. We personally know people who have significantly improved with this training frequency.
3 Days a Week: This is the standard frequency. Training three times a week provides the necessary stimulus to the muscles and optimally triggers your body into a state of protein synthesis. It’s flexible enough to fit an active and social lifestyle while giving your body enough time to rest, recover, and become stronger for the next session.
4 Days a Week: This frequency is more suited for advanced athletes with specific goals, such as natural bodybuilding competitors. However, it’s usually scheduled during very specific times of the season. Advanced athletes also tend to recover faster, so this frequency can be used in their cases. However, it is not ideal for standard individuals and situations.
That said, some people can be a bit stubborn and think that more is better. Others use their training sessions as a way to escape reality and connect with themselves, which is why they decide to train every day. While this might work for a while, it’s not optimal.
Our training philosophy is based on maintaining healthy and stable life habits. If the environment surrounding your training is decayed, stressful, or unhealthy, your body might improve, but your life won’t. While adopting the habit of training can help bring order to your life, it’s not healthy to use training as an escape valve.
Train just enough, and remember that we also need to spend our time on other things.
Conclusion: Training 3 days a week is the optimal frequency for building muscle and will allow you to balance your fitness lifestyle with everything else.