The number of times that you need to train to achieve results is probably less than you think.
Life can get busy sometimes and it is completely normal for exercise to slightly fall down the priority list. However, going from training 4x a week to 2x a week can possibly feel deflating and lead some people to believe that they’re losing all of their progress.
This is something that I personally struggled with for a number of years. If something came up that meant I had to miss a session then I would start to slightly panic and think that I was missing out.
I was wrong of course & am much better at dealing with this now. I also understand that this is quite a common issue for people to worry about so hopefully I will put your mind at ease.
What Is The Minimum Training Needed to Build Strength?
If we take a look at the very bare minimum, then results from this study found that just 20 minutes of training to failure per week was enough to build strength.
Yes you read that right – 20 minutes per week.
This was a 6-year study & whilst the researchers found that strength progress started to plateau after 1-2 years, the participants were still able to maintain their results for the remainder of the study.
However, I’m sure that if you really looked at your schedule you’d be able to find more than 20 minutes per week to dedicate to the gym. It’s still possible to build muscle even if you train twice per week providing that you’re doing enough sets during those two days.
Take a look at the results from Schoenfeld et al. (2016).
Simply doing 3 sets of each muscle group on two separate days is enough to see results. An effective full-body session could take about 50 – 70 mins, doing this twice a week isn’t too much of an ask.
How Often Do You Need to Train to Maintain Strength?
The training frequency required to maintain strength is even less than this. Participants from this study that reduced their training to once per week saw no difference in leg extension strength – some even got a little bit stronger.
Results from a more recent study have even suggested that training as infrequently as once per fortnight can maintain up to 95% of progress! Following a 12-week programme of concurrent training (cardio + weights) 2x a week, participants were split into three groups. For an additional 12 weeks one group trained 1x a week, one trained 1x a fortnight & the other stopped training completely.
Training once per week resulted in no difference in muscle strength, size + power. Those training once per fortnight saw a drop of 5-10% and the group that stopped training lost all of their progress (unsurprisingly).
However, the participants were young women so it’s unknown whether these results would be similar in older people. My guess is that this is probably not the case.
What Training Frequency Should You Aim For?
I’ll reiterate that you shouldn’t be aiming to train as little as possible. In my opinion two weight training sessions per week is the bare minimum should aim for.
However, if life gets in the way (which it will) and you find yourself stressing that all your progress has been lost after a period of infrequent training then just refer back to this email.
I hope that this has given you some reassurance if you struggle with this, just like I do.
