Training Frequency

There are both physical and psychological considerations regarding training frequency.  From a purely physical standpoint, how often a client should train depends on how long their body requires to fully recover from and produce the improvements stimulated by a workout. This can vary considerably between individuals, but twice a week appears to be the average. Recovery requirements also change as a client becomes stronger, and can be effected by other stresses both physical and mental.

During the initial few weeks while a client is learning the protocol and learning to perform the exercises, more frequent practice is beneficial. To go too long between sessions with a beginner makes the learning process more difficult. The resistance should be relatively low and the focus should be on learning and practicing form, rather than exercise. Practicing on consecutive days or as frequently as 3 days per week is not a problem with the beginner.

It is important to distinguish that the beginner is practicing High Intensity Training rather than exercising: performing the workout for learning purposes rather than exercise benefit. The better they learn the performance of each exercise and safety considerations, the better their results and safer their workouts will be later on.

Once the resistance has been increased to the point where the client is achieving momentary muscular failure within a 2 to 3 minute time frame, frequency should be reduced to 2 times a week, with a minimal of two days of rest in between. As long as the client continues to progress from workout to workout, either increasing their time under load or increasing their resistance, they are getting enough time between workouts to recover and respond. If progress begins to slow down, before reducing the training frequency inquire about other factors such as mental or physical stresses at home or work, lack of sleep, poor nutrition, illness, etc. If there are outside factors retarding recovery, reduce the training frequency unless the workouts are necessary to address psychological factors until the problem can be resolved.

If there are no other factors retarding progress, the client may simply require more time between workouts for their body to fully recover and respond. Rather than going from twice a week to once a week, the client may only require a reduction to three times every two weeks, or no more than once every 4 to 5 days. If they are training every Monday and Friday and their Monday workouts show less progress, have them train Monday, Friday, and the following Wednesday. If they aren't making progress on either their Monday or Friday workout, they may require a reduction to once a week.

The above only considers workout frequency from the perspective of what is required for best physical progress. Since many clients work out for psychological as well as physical reasons (stress relief, a break from the children or spouse, etc.) and there are psychological reasons for having increased contact with the client (to reinforce compliance with dietary guidelines or other behavioral changes). It is important to educate the client as to the physical reasons for requiring adequate time between workouts and consult with them as to whether they are willing to compromise physical progress somewhat for psychological benefit. For example if they indicate that stress relief is important to them and there are no other non-exercise activities which they could engage in for stress relief, and if they require more recovery time for best physical progress, they should be aware of this and responsible for making the decision whether to work out more frequently or not.

In the case of weight loss clients, I suggest not training them any less frequently than twice a week. The biggest factor determining successful fat loss is diet, and the more often you are in contact with clients on a diet the easier it is to monitor their adherence and provide them with motivation. I would suggest even having a weekly group meeting for fat loss clients in the middle of the week where an instructor can talk about nutrition and fat loss related topics and answer questions. This will provide even more contact with fat loss clients without risking overtraining, as well as give instructors practice for speaking.

Athletes will require less training during the competitive season than off season, and the training should focus more on areas prone to injury. Too-frequent training along with practice sessions and competitions will leave the athlete constantly wiped out and impair performance. Workouts should focus on basic compound exercises plus specific work for at-risk areas (the neck with football players and wrestlers, for example).

If more frequent training than is physically optimal is desired for psychological reasons, reducing the volume of the workouts can compensate for this somewhat. Limit the number of basic, compound movements to no more than two or three, and perform simple/single-joint movements for the remainder of the workout.