High Frequency Training Part 3

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Some people may believe that high frequency weight training is a new idea. It’s not. It’s as old as weight training itself. Bodyweight exercises have been used on a daily basis for people to get in shape for centuries. Gymnastics requiring the use of upper body strength has been done on a daily basis as long as gymnastics has been around, and farmers have had to lift heavy objects on a daily basis for centuries. If you look at some of the old trainers who produced successful bodybuilders and lifters, some of them included daily workouts for their whole body as a part of their training methods. Vince Gironda was one such old school trainer who used a wide variety of training methods, one of which was high frequency training.

Vince Gironda

Vince was very scientific in his approach but the bottom line with him was results. If it worked, he believed in it, and if it didn’t work, he threw it out regardless of the trends of his day. One of the routines he used was 3 sets of 8 reps, five days per week. To perform this routine you need to know the maximum weight you can use for 8 reps for a given exercise. On your first set you use half of the maximum weight that you can use for 8 reps. On the second set, you use 75 percent of the maximum weight you can use, and on the last set you use 100 percent of the maximum weight you can use.

Of course if I were to use this form of training or recommend to someone else, the one tweak that I would advise is to use a weight the allows you to reach your marker rep on your 8^th rep instead of training to failure. This simply means find a weight where your rep speed and rep rhythm starts to slow down on your 8^th rep instead of going to failure. Eventually you will be able to perform that third set easier without having to slow down on your 8^th rep, which is a signal to add up to five pounds until that 8^th rep gets easier again.  Vince also describes a similar routine in the book, Unleashing the Wild Physique. He recommends it for hard gainers even though he is well aware that it is a common mindset to tell hard gainers to train less often.

Bill Pearl

Bill Pearl was another bodybuilder-Strongman who used high frequency training where each body part is trained four times per week. He has a version of training where he trains his whole body Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Each body part is trained with six sets of one exercise. The sets are pyramided so that weight is increased on each set. On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, Bill does not train his whole body, but focuses on two body parts with high volume training. For instance, on Tuesday he might train chest and back for twenty sets each, on Thursdays he trains just back and shoulders, and on Saturday he just trains his arms, all for up to 20 sets.

John Farbotnik

The last lifter that I’ll discuss from the past is John Farbotnik who was a Mr. America-Mr. World from the early 1950’s. I’ve never really heard much about him except that I have a small booklet of his training methods that I think came with a barbell set that my dad bought at least 45 years ago. Farbotnik’s training course varies according to the level of experience, but he says an ambitious lifter with experience can train five days per week consisting of two dumbbell workouts and three barbell workouts.

Warning

All of these old time lifers/bodybuilders cautioned about training to failure, although back then they sometimes called it, “training on your nerve.” Bill Pearl never trained to failure. If you go to his website you’ll see warnings against training to failure with almost every routine. Vince permitted training to failure with his three sets of eight routines, and also with a routine called, “A Muscle has Four Sides.” He warned against training to failure with most of his other routines. Farbotnik also permitted training to failure, but only once per week; all other workouts were to be done with sets that stopped short of failure.

High frequency training has been around for a long time and is still being used today even though it seems most people believe that it is overtraining. However, it works if you train right. This is why I would recommend that if you use high frequency training, only train as long as you are strong. Training strong means only doing reps as long as you can maintain an even rep rhythm. In regard to how many sets to do for a body part, stop when you begin to weaken. If you follow these principles, high frequency training will generally work much better. Best of training to you.