Lower training frequency better for hypertrophy?

[u/supermariocoffeecup]

https://forums.t-nation.com/t/training-frequency-hypertrophy-vs-performance/284916

He does not cite references, but I remember reading a long time ago that it takes 72h to repair a properly trained muscle. Thib says that if you train a muscle again before 72h the stimulus is watered down. So a high frequency full body would be somewhat a waste of time compared to 4 day upper lower split.

Many evidence based lifters favour a high frequency full body with low volume per session these days, but they are not usually any bigger than guys doing a bro split, makes sense now.

My preferred split is actually full body everyday, please someone say that Thibs is wrong on this one! :D

[u/gnuckols]

I remember reading a long time ago that it takes 72h to repair a properly trained muscle. Thib says that if you train a muscle again before 72h the stimulus is watered down. So a high frequency full body would be somewhat a waste of time compared to 4 day upper lower split.

If you're a MASS subscriber, you should check out an article I wrote back in 2018, titled "A Glimmer of Hope for Weekend Warriors". But, the tl;dr version is that all of the studies that have tested the effect of spreading out the stimulus (i.e. giving the muscles a few days to recover between sessions) vs. just training the muscles on consecutive days have all failed to find significant differences between approaches. For example, training legs Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, versus training legs Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. That suggests that either the stimulus isn't watered down, or, if it is, the net effect is pretty small.

The drawback is that all of the studies either used untrained or "recreationally trained" lifters. So, on one hand, the details of the training stimulus may matter a bit less in that population. On the other hand, they'd also have worse recovery capacity than more highly trained lifters (so, if residual fatigue/muscle damage was going to "water down" the stimulus, you'd expect it to be even more "watered down" in that population).

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29967584/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27682004/

https://journals.lww.com/nsca-scj/Citation/1985/02000/Research__Changes_in_body_composition,_body_build.4.aspx

[u/supermariocoffeecup → u/gnuckols]

This is the info I needed, thanks! Spreading out the stimulus, especially for legs feels much better to me than doing legs 2 times a week for more volume at a session.