And I think push-pull legs, for example, I see a use case for, but it's only for those who are consistently training six days a week or more, essentially. Because otherwise, you're missing out typically on training each muscle twice a week. Folks, Dr. Mike here, Farby Strength, and I'm here with Dr. Milo Wolff, researcher extraordinaire, actually doing research on how to get jacked. Anything on how to get tan from your lab?
Looking at me, you would think. I'd have the keys, but no. Apparently not. On getting jacked, you told me, listen, this new meta-analysis came out, and it's kind of about how to get jacked in general or training for getting jacked, but it has a few unique features that it also has training frequency recommendations as well as volume.
Tell us about the new meta-analysis, what we can learn from it. Sure. As of this video, when this comes out, there should be a pre-print of meta-analysis on... training frequency and muscle hypertrophy. So we're getting the shit early, early.
Exclusive. Exclusive. Essentially, they looked at all the studies that manipulated frequency, having people train a muscle fewer times a week or more times a week, and they looked at how that influenced hypertrophy.
I'm sure you've heard the claim online that certain people say full body training is best. You want to have a full body split, train each muscle as often as possible. Or back in the day, especially, body part splits were best.
Just my bay. Test next Monday. Exactly.
Back Tuesday, shoulders, get the deal. This metanalysis tried to look at that idea. And we found a few things. This was a metanalysis by Pelman and colleagues.
Frequency seems to have a neutral to slightly positive effect on hypertrophy. So as you-Volume equated or not? Volume equated. Okay. Correct.
So let's just describe to folks quickly what that means. Volume equated means if you have to do, let's say, 12 sets per week. You can do them Monday, Wednesday, Friday, four sets, or you could do them Monday, Thursday, six sets each, still 12 sets per week. So the frequency doesn't raise the volume, but it just hits you with a little less, a little bit more often.
And what you're saying is the effect is either like, man, nothing to write home about, or like a little bit of a boost, even if the volume doesn't go up. What do you ascribe that to hypothetically? I have my own guesses, but I want to hear from you.
There's a variety of things mechanistically. whenever you train a muscle, that growth curve response only lasts so long. So even if you blast a muscle with more and more volume in a single bout, that myofibrillar protein synthesis response, muscle growth essentially, will only take so long.
Several days. Correct. Not eight days, not seven days, probably not six or five. Correct.
More like two to three. Correct. So if you're only training a muscle once a week, you're missing out on three or four days out of that week where you're not growing that muscle. At least neutral. And then you grow it again and at least neutral.
Missed opportunity to get more growth. Correct. Because essentially what we want to do is maximize that area under the curve of hypertrophy.
And so if we are only ever getting one bump, that is only so much area under the curve we could potentially get. Yeah. So that is my most likely explanation. To be clear, the effect is somewhere between there is next to none and there is a slight positive effect.
Slight positive. So if we want to maximize muscle growth, we probably want to err on the side of training muscle a bit more often. rather than a bit less often.
Because there's nothing to be lost, but there is potentially a small effect to be gained. Train a muscle a little bit more frequently, but with the same volume. 12 for three sessions versus 12 for two sessions, six versus four sets. In those extra sets on the fewer sessions at the end, you're kind of a little bit lit tired, as the French would say.
And then maybe your stimulus isn't as great as if you were more fresh. So in essence, three days a week of training gives you kind of... more rest breaks between the sets on average and the workouts on average, so you can come back fresh and hit it.
Do you think there's maybe some reason to think that a little bit? It's funny you mentioned that, because I'm aware of an upcoming analysis on the topic of procession volume and hypertrophy. Now, that is probably not going to be published at the time of this video.
If it is, I'll comment it below so you can check it out. But the relationship between procession volume and hypertrophy... displays more strongly diminishing returns compared to weekly. Now, as we mentioned in our video on volume, we don't have any studies looking at high frequency training in conjunction with high volume training. We don't really have studies where people are training five or six days a week with really high volumes.
Most of our studies are on high volumes, but training a muscle two or three times a week. We have very few studies on frequencies of like four or five, six times a week per muscle. However, with a previous analysis by Krieger, James Clear for example on per session volume and this one that I'm aware of behind the scenes, I can tell you that there is more of a diminishing returns situation with per session volume and hypertrophy which With a bit of speculation and a bit of theory crafting, leads me to think, practically speaking, if you're trading with really high volumes, if we want to maximize that area under the curve, we're better off spreading that high volume across more sessions because we get such strong diminishing returns on a per session basis. And so if you're doing, say, 20, 30 plus sets for a muscle, fractionally speaking, counting both direct volume and indirect, that is where I think there's a case to be made, as we'll probably see in the... meta-analysis by Remington colleagues for your volume to be spread out across three or more sessions.
It's just that we don't have the research on that yet to make any super clear inferences. Right. All right. So small increase in growth, potentially neutral to small from added frequency in a volume constrained manner. Did they look at unconstrained volume as well?
They did not. However, they looked at a variety of potential moderators. So they performed subgroup analyses based on training status, whether they were more untrained or at least slightly trained, whether they were trained to failure, etc.
And just like with volume, the relationship between frequency and hypertrophy seems to be robust to different moderators. So for most populations, in most contexts, whether you're trained to failure, etc., training your muscle a bit more often is going to have a sort of neutral to positive effect. So I would say, as a rough ballpark, train each muscle at least twice a week.
That relationship between frequency per week, like how often you train a muscle, and hypertrophy, you see slightly larger returns when you go from, say, once to twice a week than you do after that. I would say there's kind of an inflection point where after twice a week, there's maybe a positive effect, but it's very minimal. So significantly different returns from one to two versus two to three. Practically, I would say so.
Practically, I would say that you are better off training each muscle twice a week than once a week. Past that, it's probably a neutral positive effect. but it's a very slight one that there is one.
Very slight. So practically, that means that if you were training two days a week, for example, your someone doesn't have much time, you should almost certainly be training a full body split. There's no real downside, but there is an upside to training each muscle twice a week or more.
Likewise, if you're training, say, four days a week, you're likely better off with something like an upper-lower split compared to like a body part split. Sure. Importantly, here's an interesting part.
Just like with volume, they looked at frequency fractionally. So they looked at direct instances of training a muscle, like for example the biceps doing bicep curls would be a direct instance. They looked at indirect instances, where for example doing back training would still target the biceps but just not as well.
And they looked at fractional frequency, where essentially they counted direct bicep training as one unit of training frequency for the biceps, and back training as half a unit of training frequency for the biceps. And once again, just like for volume, fractional frequency was the most accurate way of looking at the data. Excellent.
So back training still counts for something. Because it's more realistic. Correct. It would be a lie to say that 16 sets of back work on a Friday Does nothing. After a Monday and Wednesday bicep workout doesn't have any more effect on biceps.
It would also be a lie to say that it counts for 16 sets of biceps. That's fucking crazy. But it might count for something like 4 to 12. Yeah.
So we're on half. There it is. Sure. So that was interesting as well, because it means that a body part split can be modified to be pretty effective. Like, don't get me wrong.
Training a muscle once a week, probably not ideal. And if I were coaching you, I would say, try training at least twice a week. Sure. But if you modify it a little bit, say, instead of just doing Monday chest, Tuesday back, Wednesday shoulders, Thursday legs, and Friday arms, you add in some compound training for your arm day. You do some chin-ups and do some bench pressing.
maybe you add a couple of leg exercises on your shoulder day, all of a sudden for most muscle groups, fractionally speaking, you're actually training them one and a half or two times a week. Yes. It doesn't take a lot of modification to make even something like a body part split pretty effective.
With frequency not playing so big of a role in the first place, with it being more so about volume and potentially other factors, even the body part split can be effective, but if you want to improve that a little bit, just some small tweaks can take it from effective to quite a bit more effective. Many people may see this study and as usual, without reading it, will conclude that C frequency is not a big deal. Neutral effect, maybe a little positive, but what do you think they're missing Milo?
If they don't include the fact that this was a volume equated study, tell us a story about non-volume equated frequency that makes some sense. Yeah. So a few things, one with really high volumes, like we just mentioned, there is a potential use case for higher frequencies. That is one thing. Equally, I think most people will be able to tolerate more volume.
and have higher quality volume, quote unquote, if they're doing the same amount of sets with a higher frequency. So just spread out across the week. Better technique, better effort, better follow through, less likely to slough off on later sets. Correct.
Is that number seven of legs? You're like, man, I'll do it, but I'm not going to do it, do it. Whereas if you take those eight sets, for example, you're doing that one session and spread it into two days.
Yep. Four, four. Mentally present for each set.
A hundred percent. So I think with specialization phases where you're performing higher volumes, Or if you want to get the most out of each set, a slightly higher frequency can be beneficial. Look, it's not going to be a night and day effect, but I think if you want to optimize your growth, slightly higher frequencies are probably a good idea. It's an optimization thing, but it's also a question of what exactly do you lose by just taking the same amount of training and spreading it out more.
I think it's a personal preference thing for a lot of people. They like to just smash the muscle just a few times a week or even once. But even for the one time a week, your recommendation is like, okay, fuck it. You like once a week, sweet. Monday, hit chest like crazy.
Hit a few sets of triceps after though. And then Thursday, hit your tricep workout. Your biceps, you'll see arms Thursday. Thursday arms, back, shoulders, arms, somewhere there. And legs never shows up.
But after you finish your bicep stuff and your tricep stuff, do a couple of sets of close grip presses or pushups after your tricep stuff. It'll cook your triceps even better. But it'll get you enough of a stimulus for chest. that you're definitely benefiting from multiple per week frequencies.
And you'll probably be able to put in a little bit more volume that way, and a little bit more of an elevation of the fractional synthetic rate of muscle growth. And then you'll get more jacked over long-term versus Monday chest, Thursday shoulders and arms, but nothing remotely to the chest at all, because it needs recovery, bro, because it probably doesn't training once a week. I agree.
And I think people can think of frequency of training kind of like protein, where total protein intake. is fairly important for hypertrophy. And you want to make sure you're getting enough protein each day to maximize hypertrophy.
But exactly what your meal frequency is on a given day, like whether you're having three or four meals or four or six or what have you, doesn't seem to play nearly as large of a role. It's the same with volume and frequency, where volume seems to be quite important for hypertrophy, as we've discussed. But exactly how you spread that out plays potentially a small role, but certainly not as large as volume. Yes.
Unless we go to the extremes. Correct. One meal a day.
difficult to get your protein at all. Just like one workout a week is how you're going to get all your volume in, so it's practical consideration. But also, a lot of the protein that's available to you in the digestive tract from any one meal, some fraction of it gets used for muscle synthesis, not high, and the rest of it the body doesn't need at the time, just gets burned directly for energy.
And so if you eat 250 grams of protein in one meal, you may find that you only really animalized 125 of that, which is good. But if you ate 100 grams of protein per meal twice a day or 125, you may anabolize 75 to 90 of each one of those. And then you're just taking home much more protein that way with you.
Same for training frequency. The quality of each workout improves substantially if you add workouts. And so for a person who wants, because I think here's where I'm going with this, Milo. Some people are looking at what can I get away with? doing the minimum to still get great results.
And there's nothing wrong with that screen. But a lot of people are looking for, I want to make sure that my workout routine is checking all the big boxes and not missing out some shit where it's like, man, I wish I knew that. You know, like for example, talk to people who try to get bigger shoulders, side delts, and they have training shoulders.
The shoulder day is crazy, but it's once a week. I usually talk to those people and I go, dude, try two or three shoulders per week exercises. or sessions rather, you're going to see a huge difference because your shoulders don't take that long to recover and you can multiply your volume by X, Y, Z. Those people typically experience that and they go, God damn it.
Why didn't anyone tell me this shit? So as far as frequency per week, we're ready to say you and I, real serious effort at getting jacked, two times a week frequency is the meat and potatoes for most people. Sometimes higher is better, unlikely that lower is better. Solid take.
I think practically for people, what that means is if you're training two to three days a week, I would typically stick with the full body approach. That allows you to train most muscles two to three times a week. And real quick, just for folks that don't connect the dots yet, because it took me a little while to understand this.
The alternative is people will say, okay, I train Monday, Thursday. And you're like, okay, great. And you and I are going to make a thing in full body because it takes, the growth happens for a few days, it comes down, happens a few days, comes down.
But some people will be like, okay, so I do upper body on Thursday, lower body on Monday. And you're like, oh man. The volume is the same total if the total amount of workout time is the same.
But now the frequency is insufficient and now you grow a little bit, but then you sort of, and then you grow a little bit more. So just the frequency alone, even if it's a smaller effect, and between one and two, it's a notable effect. It's a good idea to do a 2x or more, even if you just train twice a week. Correct.
Which means the best routine for you will depend on how often you train. Because we want to hit each muscle at least twice a week, sometimes more. So I think if you're training two to three days a week, all else being equal, a full body routine will be pretty adequate for most people.
If you're training four days a week or five days a week, an upper-lower split could work great. Full body can work great too. Can still work, for sure.
If you're recovering, joints feel okay. But then... Four to five days a week is where upper-lower starts to become more viable, because it allows you to train each muscle twice a week at least.
If you're doing a five-day split, for example, you could do upper-lower, upper-lower, upper. Three days for upper body, which anecdotally, I enjoy. Two days for lower body.
And I think push-pull legs, for example, I see a use case for, but it's only for those who are consistently training six days a week or more, essentially. Because otherwise, you're missing out typically on training each muscle twice a week. For you to train each muscle twice a week, you need... two full rotations of the push-pull-legs sequence. Sure.
So I think that's more of a reserved use case. A body part split can work, but you need to be smart about it, essentially. You need to make sure you're making those modifications to your routine to make each muscle between at least twice a week.
So it's not a body part split anymore. It's a body part emphasis. But if spiritually you view it as a body part split and you still enjoy it, and that's probably what you're doing in the first place, just those modifications make it a bit more effective?
I wonder. Is that why? Sports science.
There you go. Proved. Correct.
And then the final use case I would say is if you're specializing on a muscle or you're training with really high volumes all around, that's where experimenting with slightly higher frequencies for those muscles you're specializing on or for your whole body can become beneficial. If you have the time and the inclination to say you get 20, 30 fractional sets per muscle per week, that's where maybe doing a full body split three or four days a week or training the specialized upon muscles. three or four days a week could become beneficial.
As I mentioned, those diminishing returns on per session volume might allow you to get more overall hypertrophy if you spread that out or stretch it out across the week. How many sets per muscle per session would you say starts to be a little much for optimal hypertrophy? I've heard eight, I've heard 12, I've heard six. What is your take on that on average? That's a great idea.
That's a great question. For my own coaching process and the app we're developing, I have essentially set a limit of around five to eight sets per session. So for every five to eight sets, direct sets, you do per week for a muscle, I would add one extra day of training. That's direct training. So in fractional terms, maybe we're talking about 10 fractional sets.
So for every 10 fractional sets, I would add one day of training. If you're getting 20 sets a week for a muscle, that gets into about two days a week. If you're doing, say, 30 sets or below, like between 20 and 30, I would do three days. That makes sense.
I think that's a rough ballpark in the heuristic I use. That makes perfect sense. That's it?
That's it, I think. All right. Guys, like, subscribe, do YouTube things. Check out Milo.
He's on YouTube. He's on Instagram. We'll have all the links below.
See you guys next time.