How many days per week for building muscle?

[candice]

Hi Cathe,

Way back when I was a senior in highschool(about 17 yrs ago, oh no!), I became interested in weight training. Back then I always heard to train each body part 3x per week to gain muscle. But now, I am confused because lots of people train each body part only twice, or even once, per week. Has the thinking changed on this? What is the general guideline these days? I am pretty fit - don't really need to lose much weight (5 lbs would be nice) but I'd like to be more "cut". I am also short of time these days (have a 1 yr. old + 2 yr. old!). So if I can gain muscle with 1 day per part per week, I would love to get "permission" to do this! I've been doing each PS series workout twice per week and see good results so far, but it is very hard for me to fit this all in plus 4 cardio sessions, so I don't think that I can keep it up. But I want to see some more muscle by summer!!!

thanks! Hope your pregnancy is going well. Pretty soon you'll have TWO little people running around, like me! That's why I work out at 5:00 AM!

Candice

 

[Cathe Friedrich]

A one year old and two year old, wow, they are close in age. You are one busy woman for sure !

Yes, I believe the thinking has changed on gaining muscle. It is possible to gain strength from training each major muscle group with as little as one time per week. But much of this depends on your genetic make up. Some people do better with each body part two times per week and some even prefer three (however, I personally feel that three times per week, unless it is an endurance workout, is tough because it really cuts down on recovery time for the heavily trained muscles).

If you are having a hard time fittng in PS series twice per week, try to do it only once per week and then add one day of MIS after at least a day of rest, as an overall touch up.

Good Luck!