Are You Training Frequently or Infrequently Training?

Welcome to another

Energy Bulletin

It never ceases to amaze me how often people want to do the absolute minimum in order to achieve a spectacular result. It's often reflected in all aspects of our lives from our relationships, to work and of course in our training.

Basically we are a lazy society. No surprises there. What is surprising, at least to me, is how many people will come to me, often spending a reasonable sum of money, to find out what the minimum amount of training they have to do to achieve a decent level of fitness or fat loss.

Where is the dedication?

When a client comes in and says, "I want you to design me a program that is easy for me to maintain with my busy lifestyle." What they are really saying is, "Look, I don't really want to be here, it's just that being a fat lazy sod isn't exactly cool or glamorous, so I need you to make me feel better about being lazy."

This is when I sit back take a long look at my prospective client and give them the real low down on what needs to happen to achieve a good result no matter what your goal. If you think that training with me once or twice a week without doing anything else is going to get you the body or the fitness level that you are probably aspiring to, then think again.

Once or twice a week is a maintenance program, nothing more. In fact training once a week won't be enough to maintain anything, even if you're fit already. It may slow your backward slide a little but not much more.

Training twice a week at intensity will keep those of you with a low to average level of fitness exactly where you are at, low to average. Forget about achieving any great standard of health, low body fat or level of fitness. Having said that, it can be a starting point for some people if they are completely new to moving. (It might astound you how little most people move)

Three times a week, again training at a reasonable intensity, will certainly maintain the standard of anyone with a low to mid level of fitness and, provided the training is sound and well designed, it may be enough for you to start achieving a reasonable return for your time and efforts. *It is important to note that I am not talking about jogging on a treadmill or sitting on a bike for 40 min 3 times a week. Although some of you may think that is training, it certainly isn't training smart. (See Energy Bulletin Cardio VS Strength Training, Friday, April 18, 2008)

Of course training three days a week is simply the minimum amount of time one should train when you are looking to achieve a particular result or goal rather than maintaining what you have. A competitive athlete for example would more than likely, depending on the discipline, find themselves losing ground after only a few weeks of training only three times per wk.

Four times a week is where we start making some serious gains. Although it's more than likely not enough for the elite among us, it is really where those who are looking to make substantial physiological gains and changes like body fat loss and improved movement performance should be aiming for.

Now some of you I'm sure are thinking "Damn, that's a lot of time to dedicate out of the week." or perhaps you're thinking that there is no way that you want to train that hard/often. But the reality is that we are actually designed to do a lot more.

The optimum training time to achieve your best fitness and health should be around five times a week, again provided the program is designed properly and that it is changed regularly to ensure proper recovery of your muscles, nervous system, lymphatic system, endocrine system, etc, etc. Do you need to do this all with a trainer... Of course not, you just need to do it. A trainer should be used to get that extra intensity out of your session and of course to learn better lifting techniques and exercises, not to baby sit you through a session. (Although you wouldn't know this to see most P.T. sessions.)

Understand that what you have to do to move forward and achieve results is completely different than maintaining once you are there. If you come to me saying that you want a nutrition program that you can do forever but you also need to lose 10 kilos then I'd have to tell ya, "Sorry, we don't sell fantasy's here."

duncan