Many people believe that to get the physique they want they must train frequently. It is commonly believed that someone must train 4-6 days a week to build muscle and burn fat. The reality is that its not true. If you work out intensely and achieve progressive overload, you can achieve better muscle and strength gains on a 3-day split than someone who trains 6 days a week focusing on high volume exercises. This assumes that you are a natural strength athlete who does not take steroids or performance enhancing drugs. If you eat at a small to moderate caloric deficit while consistently getting stronger in the gym, you can lose fat while gaining a few pounds of muscle. There are so many fitness and lifestyle benefits to not training so much that we will address in this article.
Improved Central Nervous System Recovery
You get full Central Nervous System recovery by not lifting weights every day. The Central Nervous System is what allows your body to perform intense heavy lifting in the gym and achieve progressive overload. The research shows that it takes your nervous system about 48 hours to recover from an intense lifting session. For Instance, if you strength train intensely on Monday, your nervous system would not be fully replenished until Wednesday. Therefore, you should use Tuesday as a rest day. It is advantageous to not lift weights 2 days in a row. Even if you want to train a completely different muscle group the next day, its still beneficial for recovery to leave 48-72 hours of rest in between lifting sessions. As a natural, this method would allow you to make the best strength and muscle gains in the gym.
Opportunity To Work More Muscle Groups
On a 3-day training split you can work more muscle groups at a time as opposed to a traditional bodybuilder split of 5-6 days a week where you’re usually hitting only 1 muscle group per training session. This allows you to hit majority of your muscle groups twice a week with great recovery. For instance, you may do an upper body workout on Monday, a lower body workout on Wednesday and another upper body workout on Friday or Saturday. You expend more calories by training more muscle groups at a time.
Working Out 3 Days a Week on a Fat Loss Program
Working out no more than 3 times a week is excellent for a fat loss program. One reason why is that it gives you better control of your appetite. The calorie deficit is what produces fat loss, and the strength training is what supports muscle growth or muscle retention. Sustaining a caloric deficit is already difficult enough for most people due to hunger issues. Training an excess number of days per week may raise your appetite and cause overeating which leads to fat gain. A lot of people are attracted to the idea of doing 4-6 workouts per week on a weight loss program because subconsciously they think they can out train their diets. The reality is you can’t out train an excessively high calorie diet even if you exercise every single day.
Working Out 3 Days a Week for Pure Muscle Building
You can gain weight without gaining fat on 3-day workout regimen. The key is to make sure that you are eating in a very small net caloric surplus, getting in sufficient protein, and achieving certain lifting metrics in the gym. You would eat in surplus of around 200 calories per day. For example, if you are a 160-pound male with daily maintenance level calories of 2400, you would eat around 2600 calories a day until you reach your desired body weight. It would be a slow process since you want to make sure you are gaining lean muscle mass without the excess fat. Strength progressions on your heavy compound movements would be easier to achieve on a lean bulk since you have a bit more food to work with. Working out 3 days a week on a bulk will still give you great results if you are achieving progressive overload on a consistent basis.
Reduced Time in the Gym
If we were to be truly honest with ourselves, going to the gym is not the most convenient routine experience. The commute from work is terrible. The gym is very crowded during the after-work hours. You must wait for weights to be available. You may plan for a 45-minute workout but you’re really going to be in the gym for at least an hour and 15 minutes due to waiting on equipment for use. Another problem is that certain exercises you must do first. For instance, if its your leg day, you must squat first before you do any other leg exercises. The bar bell may not be available by the time you are ready to start your workout. It would be a lot less inconvenient going to the gym 3 times per week as opposed to 5-6 times per week.
Better Gym/Life Balance
Maybe you have other activities you want to put time into that would be disrupted by a 5-6 day a week Gym commitment. These can be activities like pursuing an evening graduate degree program, taking dance classes, working on your business, or spending more time with loved ones. You don’t necessarily have to treat the gym like a part time job to get the body you want. Three workouts per week would still give you the results you want.
Flexibility
A commitment of 3 intense workouts per week is very flexible. You can set up your workout schedule however you like. For instance, you may want to do a Monday, Wednesday, and Friday or Saturday workout. Another way you can set up your program is by doing a Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday or Sunday plan. The key is to make sure that you are leaving 48-72 hours in between training sessions. You don’t get this kind of flexibility when you try to commit to 5-6 workouts per week and something in your life comes up that causes you to miss a training session.
Conclusion
You don’t have to train as much as you think to get great fitness results. If you are achieving progressive overload on your compound exercises, you can still build muscle even if you are training only 2 days per week. If your calories are in a deficit, you can still lose fat working out 2-3 days per week. We will discuss 2-day workout splits in a later article. If you workout no more than 3 times per week, you get better central nervous system recovery, better strength and muscle gains, better gym/life balance, and more flexibility.
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