High Frequency Training Guide

There are many different training splits and a multitude of training principles one can implement into their training programme. My favourite is high frequency, full body training – let me tell you why.

High frequency, full body training involves, yes, you guessed it, training the entire body (every muscle group) during every session and training frequently enough to take full advantage of more frequent spikes in muscle protein synthesis. This can be training your full body three times per week, five, or more times per week. The more sessions you can hit (around the 5+ sessions a week mark), you'll need to perform fewer sets each session. The fewer sessions in your plan (around the 3-4 sessions mark) means you'll be required to do more sets during each session because as a general rule, you'll want to aim to hit each muscle with 10 to 30 sets per week.

This is not a training split I incorporate into every client's plan, as people have different goals and there is no one size fits all approach! However, I use full-body training splits with MOST of my clients, including myself.

During the planning of each session, I'll provide mechanical tension on every single muscle group; chest five times per week, back five times per week and hamstrings five times per week etc. Okay, perhaps I hit hamstrings three times per week, I'm only human, and training hamstrings is emotional!

There is more and more research that supports high frequency training of all muscle groups as a favourable training methodology. In short, the research shows that at worst, it's as good as other training splits and at best, vastly superior!

A randomised control trial undertaken by the University of Sydney observed groups performing 10 sets per muscle group versus 5 sets per muscle group in a single session and found that 10 sets are as effective as 5 sets. Put simply, doing twice the work in a session doesn’t necessarily translate to twice the gains. They found that 4-6 sets per muscle group was the optimal level. This and many other recent studies cast further doubt on the traditional ‘bro split’ where one muscle group is worked in each session (if your weekly volume per muscle group is 15 sets, it would be suboptimal to complete these in a single workout) and it brings more evidence to the need for high frequency, full body training sessions, where you can split your weekly volume over multiple, more optimal sessions.

The Benefits of High Frequency Training

Here are some of the main benefits of full body high frequency training compared to more conventional training splits:

Increase in weekly net muscle protein synthesis

Muscle protein synthesis (MPS) is the physiological process whereby we use muscle proteins synthesise to repair damage muscles caused by exercise. It is an opposing force to muscle protein breakdown (MPB) in which protein is lost as a result of exercise. When you exercise, muscle protein breakdown occurs, the recovery process is where you'll synthesise new muscle proteins, AKA muscle building, or getting jacked bro!

The ratio of MPS to MPB determines whether muscle tissues are built or lost. If MPS outpaces MPB, muscle growth is achieved, and if MPB outpaces MPS, the opposite occurs.

More frequency spikes in MPS can help increase NET muscle protein synthesis, thus ensuring that, overall, we're building more muscle than we're breaking down.

Reduced muscle soreness due to the repeated bout effect

You probably think that your body will be in bits training every muscle group during each session, and you'd be right, at least for the first week or two. After that, your body will get used to it due to a little thing called the repeated bout effect (RBE). As your body becomes conditioned to the increased training frequency, you'll find that the delayed onset of muscle soreness (DOMS) will reduce dramatically. Therefore, you'll progressively feel less sore after your sessions. Personally, when I switched to high frequency, full body training, I found that I was able to add running back into my training. If you try to run after doing a full conventional leg session the previous, you're going to run into some problems, literally!

Higher weekly total volume and greater loads pushed through the week

The main advantage of high-frequency training is perhaps the least sexy sounding advantage, which is simply being able to facilitate more weekly training volume (total number of reps and sets). In the scientific literature, we can see that the more volume we have (to a point), the greater the hypertrophic response. At its core, the best bodybuilding split is the one that will allow the participant to handle a higher training volume whilst allowing for the necessary recovery.

More quality reps and less wasted sets

If you're currently doing a traditional bro split and consequently have a full day of hitting your legs, you'll have about five quality sets, and MANY low quality / wasted sets. Once you're on your third or fourth leg exercise, you're really going be struggling with quality technique, tempo and mind-muscle connection and most importantly, the amount of weight you'll be able to push is significantly reduced. Furthermore, we need to consider the per-session volume threshold, which is the maximum amount of volume we can incorporate into each session before we see diminishing returns or even completely wasted reps. It's currently not clear where that upper ceiling is, as it's likely individual, and dependant on many other factors, such as protein intake, genetics, stress, sleep, age, gender, training age and more. Still, research suggests that it's around five to ten sets per muscle, per workout. So, once you surpass five to ten sets in a single workout for any given muscle, you'll be wasting those extra sets. Therefore, you are better off simply splitting any additional volume out into another session. With high-frequency full-body training, we only hit three to six sets for a given muscle in a single session, which means there is virtually no risk of having any wasting sets. I don't know about you, but if I'm finishing my session with high rep leg extensions, I want every one of those disgusting reps counted towards my progress.

As you can see, high-frequency is a fantastic bodybuilding approach and is very popular amongst the evidence-based community.

This is not an easy training methodology, so I advise progressively breaking yourself into it. Start with two to three full-body sessions and build yourself up to five or six. Alternatively, start with shorter sessions, less than 30 minutes. If you throw yourself into five full-body sessions mirroring the intensity and duration one would see in a conventional bodybuilding split, your body will not thank you for it. Slowly build up the volume and intensity and, of course, train smart!

References

If you want to implement high-frequency training and wish to be guided by a coach, then why not sign up to Online Personal Training!