Muscle groups that benefit from increased exercise frequency?
I've heard several points of opinion that some muscle groups benefit better for more frequent resistance training, in some cases 5 or six times in a week, and I was hoping to find some support or refutation for this claim. Most frequently I hear this said of quads/legs, lats, and abdominals.
(3)3 Comments
Sorted by latest first Latest Oldest Best
All muscles are not equal. Different muscles have different purpose.
This is reflected eg. in their fiber type composition.
For instance the heart work continously.
Abs can be trained every day. However keep in mind that they are also trained indirectly by the compund movements.
Quads can be trained often.
One should ideally squat maybe 3 x a week.
You need little volume to train your chest.
Any muscle group can benefit from increased exercise frequency. However you may end up sacrificing intensity for volume. For example: you could squat everyday, but you won't be able to max out everyday since your muscles would still be recovering. Therefore I think your question alludes to another which asks - what are your goals and reasons for exercise? If your goal is to lift heavy and join a powerlifting meet, your exercise program would be very different than say if you are conditioning yourself to get through military selection.
Your CNS and musculoskeletal system (which includes muscles, bones, tendons, ligaments) will try to adapt to the type of training you throw at it, and these performance adaptations are quite specific. If your goal is to do 1000 pushups everyday, then practice building up to that number each day would be a strategy. If your goal is to max out on bench press one day of the year at a meet, chances are there is no need to bench everyday during your training, and allowing more rest in between training days would allow you to recover and bench more weight and allow adaptation in that particular area.
However one benefit of high frequency training is that you would most likely have to stretch more and learn to manage muscle knots and injury prevention. On top of that you have the chance to really nail down the movement pattern during this period of high frequency specialization.
Larger muscles can take more of a beating while smaller muscles can take less. Whether or not it's more beneficial depends on your experience and training. You don't want to overtrain a muscle either. Training too much can cause less results or even ruin your workout unless your advanced See below:
Large muscles such as chest and quads: 120 reps a week max is generally recommended. This can be split up in 4 3x10 exercises or however you see fit. Smaller isolation exercises such ss flyes can be added sometimes without sacrificing anything.
Smaller muscle groups 30 to 60 reps a week. You don't want to hit these too hard, especially since they get worked by compound exercises.
Accessory muscles such as calves, forearms, or core-these can be more frequent since they are type I muscles, but 3 times a week, a couple exercises each should do it.. and should be close to the max you do.
These are not solid rules.. the more advanced you become you can add sets to build more muscle and use 5 or 6 sets instead of 3.
Terms of Use Privacy policy Contact About Cancellation policy © freshhoot.com2026 All Rights reserved.