Want to get better at something? Do more of the ‘something’. That is frequency explained in its most simple form. If you were going to run a marathon, it is obvious you would run more than once a week, the same goes for any muscle/skill you are wanting to improve. If you want a bigger chest, you would train that body part more than once a week, if you wanted stronger glutes, you would train your glutes more often.
Do more of the specific exercise to aid your goal. If your goal is to get a one rep max lift in the bench at 80kg, but you keep failing at 80kg every time you try; it may be as simple as benching more often.
Most people have one assigned day for a body part/movement. If you are benching once a
week and on an 8-week program, after 8 weeks you have only benched 8 times. By adding in
the bench press to another day in your program, you will double the volume.
There is a law of diminishing returns on this as we build muscle when we rest and recover, so it is important to not take it to any extremes, just as a marathon runner wouldn’t run every day, it is important not to bash yourself every day. Larger muscles may take 2-3 days to fully recover. Thee include your chest, back, glutes and hamstrings. Where as the smaller muscle groups such as rear delts, biceps, triceps, calves etc may only take 1-2 days to recover.
My suggestion would be once you hit a plateau on a lift you wish to increase, then introduce that lift into a second day, once you have utilised that, I would usually say 3 days is the magic number, you can get a lot of work in 3 days and on top of that, you can recover between days too in a typical 7 day week. If you are training a movement or muscle 2-3 times a week, make sure you have variance, in both the lifts and rep ranges. An example would be including 3 different chest exercises in your program
Day 1 benching 4 sets x 5 reps
Day 2 dumbbell flies 3 sets x 10 reps
Day 3 could be incline dumbbell press of 2 sets x 15 reps.
To conclude, keep things simple and logical, and do more of the ‘something’.
Do more of the specific exercise to aid your goal. If your goal is to get a one rep max lift in the bench at 80kg, but you keep failing at 80kg every time you try; it may be as simple as benching more often.
Most people have one assigned day for a body part/movement. If you are benching once a
week and on an 8-week program, after 8 weeks you have only benched 8 times. By adding in
the bench press to another day in your program, you will double the volume.
There is a law of diminishing returns on this as we build muscle when we rest and recover, so it is important to not take it to any extremes, just as a marathon runner wouldn’t run every day, it is important not to bash yourself every day. Larger muscles may take 2-3 days to fully recover. Thee include your chest, back, glutes and hamstrings. Where as the smaller muscle groups such as rear delts, biceps, triceps, calves etc may only take 1-2 days to recover.
My suggestion would be once you hit a plateau on a lift you wish to increase, then introduce that lift into a second day, once you have utilised that, I would usually say 3 days is the magic number, you can get a lot of work in 3 days and on top of that, you can recover between days too in a typical 7 day week. If you are training a movement or muscle 2-3 times a week, make sure you have variance, in both the lifts and rep ranges. An example would be including 3 different chest exercises in your program
Day 1 benching 4 sets x 5 reps
Day 2 dumbbell flies 3 sets x 10 reps
Day 3 could be incline dumbbell press of 2 sets x 15 reps.
To conclude, keep things simple and logical, and do more of the ‘something’.
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