Alpha Progression
How often should you lift weights?

How often should you lift weights?

The question of the right training frequency concerns many ambitious strength athletes. How often you should go to the gym to achieve maximum training progress depends on various factors. The available time, training stimulus, regeneration, and experience play an essential role!

  • Adaptation of workouts to everyday life
  • Optimal stimulation for more muscle growth
  • Regeneration and the danger of overtraining
  • Training progress as an indicator

Available time and the right training system

First, it is necessary to adapt your training to your everyday life. How often do you have the opportunity to go to the gym? Here the choice of the right training schedule is crucial. The consensus is that you should train each muscle group with 11-18 sets per week.

To follow this rough guideline, training each muscle 2-4 times per week is recommended. A full body plan (2-4 workouts per week) or an upper body/lower split (2-4 workouts per week) is recommended. Six workouts per week, e.g., a push/pull/legs split, is also possible.

Feel free to use our Alpha Progression app to get a training plan tailored to your needs. Take advantage of various exercises and periodize your strength training as needed.

The training system is also based on the experience level of the strength athlete. Experienced athletes can benefit from a higher volume per workout. Accordingly, a higher split may also make sense.

Setting the right stimulus

Once you have found the right training schedule, you should also consider the training stimulus. How often you can do strength training per week depends on your stress tolerance.

Each muscle can be considered individually. Here the size and muscle fiber composition are decisive. The smaller the corresponding muscle is and the more slow-twitch muscle fibers it has, the more frequently it can be trained.

The biceps can be trained more frequently than the chest. However, you can train them with a greater volume per workout but less frequently.

Despite these differences, training the muscles at least twice a week still makes sense. This way, you will build muscle much faster!

The relationship between stimulus and regeneration must be right

The balance between training stimulus and recovery is also crucial. How often you want to do strength training per week depends on your level of fatigue.

For ideal muscle growth, an appropriate stimulus must be set constantly. However, too much stress can quickly lead to overtraining. The body no longer keeps up with the regeneration. In addition, the opposite effect can also be achieved here: overtraining can also cause the body to break down muscles.

Do regular deloads to avoid overtraining.

Even the best stimulus won't do you any good without sufficient regeneration. Listen to your body. As soon as you feel drained after each week of training, you should adjust your training.

How often you should do strength training per week depends on your training progress

Beginners should complete a full body plan with three to four weekly workouts. This results in a very effective stimulus, especially at the beginning, and accelerates muscle growth.

The more experienced you become and the more strength you gain, the more frequently you can train. It is important to readjust your training. At a certain point, you can no longer train your legs four times a week without stepping into overtraining.

Therefore, you should focus on a higher split with more volume. Five to six workouts can be done per week as long as each muscle group is sufficiently stressed.

The stress level will change. For example, the stronger you get at squats, the greater the load you move. It is enough to train your legs twice a week if you do heavy squats with 120 kg for 8 repetitions.

How often you should work out per week also depends on your stress level. Understand it as a process that is centered on your progress.

Conclusion

How often you should do strength training per week varies from person to person.

The rule of thumb still says that we should train each muscle 2-4 times a week. However, this rough guideline must always be considered regarding available time, training stimulus, regeneration, and progress.

Every body is different. Thus, there is no universal training frequency that every strength athlete should follow. Instead, it depends on the set stimulus, experience level, and regeneration ability.

For your training, you should take a look at our Alpha Progression app. With it, you can create a custom training plan with a frequency optimally aligned to your personal needs.