Posted by Perform a random Google search about whether or not group muscle workout works or not and the conflicting answers will leave you baffled and more confused than ever. Some articles will tell you that training one muscle group once a week is one of the worst things you can do for your body while others will be singing praises of it and recommend you to use this approach to maximize your results and gain muscle. But talking about things on the ground level, if you are a fitness enthusiast or a regular gym goer who has actually spent time trying to find out a workout tahat really does work, you might have found this frequency to be most popular. However, whether or not this kind of workout would work for you or not is what we would understand now.
Can You Have Remarkable Gains with Once-a-Week Muscle Group Workout Plan?
If you wish to gain muscle and develop strength and balance, then targeting a particular muscle group once a week and indulging in muscle exercises weekly is not the best plan. The reason for this is pretty simple and it is the fact that it usually does not take the span of a week for a muscle to recover after it has been trained. Usually, two to three days are enough for the muscle to repair completely and grow after training it and for the gains from the previous workout. However, other factors such as intensity, diet, supplements, sleep, genetics an even stress levels also affect the amount of time your muscles take to recover.
The higher the training frequency, the more a muscle group is stimulated. Using simple math, we can understand that:
- Training a muscle once a week amounts to 54 sessions per year.
- Training a muscle one and a half times a week makes it 81 times a year.
- And, training a muscle twice a week amounts to 104 growth periods per year.
For this reason, it makes it appropriate to train each muscle any time between 1.5 to 3 times a week. It does not essentially mean that the 1.5 or twice a week frequency is better or more effective than once a week frequency. It just means that this frequency might increase muscle growth over a period of time. With that said, it’s also true that a vast majority of lifters do believe in the muscle group workout benefits and follow the once-a-week plan. The examples for this type of frequency are as follows:
Split 1
- Monday: Shoulders & Abs
- Tuesday: Legs
- Wednesday: Rest Day
- Thursday: Chest & Triceps
- Friday: Back & Biceps
- Saturday: Rest Day
- Sunday: Rest Day
Split 2
- Monday: Shoulders, Triceps & Biceps
- Tuesday: Rest Day
- Wednesday: Legs & Abs
- Thursday: Rest Day
- Friday: Chest & Back
- Saturday: Rest Day
- Sunday: Rest Day
These are just two examples of workout splits and there are many more. With this type of workout routine each muscle group is trained every 7th day which lowers the frequency of the training. But there are ways to make once a week group muscle workout succeed. Let’s learn about the same.
How To Get Significant Gains with Once-a-Week Muscle Group Workout Plan?
The way to make once a week frequency work is by ascertaining that you provide the right kind of stimulus and train a muscle group enough to make sure that you don’t have to train it again for the week. You will see the drawbacks of training a muscle group once a week as it’s very easy for our body to forget about and lose all the progress you have made during the previous workout. However, to reduce the degree and to make this frequency work and keep the progress, you need to increase the volume which means the reps and sets of the exercise.
Conclusion
Even though, the once-a-week group muscle workout can work if practiced at the right volume and intensity. It’s better to go for the 1.5-3 times a week approach as it will help you yield results faster. If you are convinced and would now like to join a gym, then you can do so with India’s largest fitness network- FITPASS which lets you access 5,500+ gyms and fitness centers across India. With FITPASS you can attend your workout in 39 cities across.