Intensity and frequency are two factors that must be considered when the goal is to engage in productive weight training workouts. In my earlier years of training, it was all about intensity. Intensity is what helped me to make rapid progress. I have now been training for a little over four decades, and it has become increasingly apparent to me that a well-designed high frequency program can be a key player in regard to long term progress. This is because frequency is a form of consistency, and the right type of consistency will lead to improvement.
Intensity
Intensity refers to how much effort you put forth when training. If you push to the point of max reps, it requires a maximum amount of intensity of effort to get the weight up on your last rep. High intensity can definitely stimulate strength and size gains. However, when I first began to use high intensity workouts, it didn’t take me long to realize that I could not train with maximum intensity in every workout session. It basically took a muscle group at least 96 hours to fully recover from a high intensity session. This amounts to two workouts every eight days for a given muscle group. For some lifters, this is more than enough frequency to keep their muscles activated to gain strength and size. Unfortunately, my body never responded very well when I took several days off between workouts. My muscles do not seem to stay activated very long regardless of the amount of intensity or volume. For this reason, I found that I needed to work out more often.
In my early days of lifting, I totally believed that high intensity was the major key to progress. At the same time, my body did not respond well when incorporating the long rest periods that were necessary for full recovery between high intensity workouts. Since I believed high intensity workouts were necessary for progress, and I also needed sufficient training frequency, I began doing two moderate intensity workouts per week, and one high intensity workout per week. This amounted to a total of three workouts per week. In my way of thinking, the moderate intensity workouts served as recovery workouts that would maintain my strength and size while recovering between my weekly high intensity workouts. I also believe that the high intensity workouts were the portion of my training that drove any of the progress that I made. This was the best solution that I could find for many years.
When High Frequency Failed
During those early years of training, the concept of working my whole body on a daily basis had entered my mind. This led me to try high frequency training, but I did not understand that high intensity and high frequency do not mix well, so my approach to high frequency did not work. I blamed the lack of results on high frequency training.
My New Approach To High Frequency Training
It took me many years to figure out that the amount of intensity and training volume had to be adjusted correctly when utilizing a high frequency training program. When I limited my workouts to two work-sets per muscle group, and I only pushed two thirds of the way to failure, I began to gradually gain some strength. Many lifters correlate gradual strength gains with inferior methodology, but my viewpoint on the matter is that gradual strength gains are sustainable. In contrast, if you always push for rapid gains, you may achieve them, but rapid gains that come from high intensity training are often followed by a sticking point that won’t budge.
Gradual Strength Gains For Long-Term Success
When I finally bought into the idea that gradual strength gains would lead to better long-term results than pushing for rapid gains, I did not try to add weight to my lifts at the first sign of a strength gain. My primary goal was to acclimate to the weight before I tried to increase the weight. It had finally dawned on me that the main reason the human body gains strength is to adapt to a lifting stress by making it easier to lift the same amount of weight. Of course, this is the opposite of the mindset that I started with as I was taught that when the weights became easier to lift, progress would stop. I had always believed that workouts must be hard, but I began to question this after enough years of experiencing a high intensity sticking point, so I eventually began to look at the strength building process from a different point of view.
After giving this matter plenty of thought, I realized that the human body gains strength because it wants the same weights to become easier to lift. The problem is that this never happened while using high intensity training because I had always increased the weights or reps at the very first sign of a strength gain. The result was that the weights always stayed hard to lift instead of getting easier to lift. I finally understood that when I immediately increased the weight in response to a strength gain, I was fighting against the goal that my body was trying to achieve. My new strategy was simple, stick with the same amount of weight and reps for six weeks and allow the weights to grow easier to lift before adding a little weight. I wondered if my reasoning would prove to be correct and was somewhat surprised to find that I was on the right track. The weights gradually became easier to lift.
The Right Amount of Intensity
Another important realization was that I had to use the right amount of effort. I switched from thinking that I had to train to failure to stopping when I reached what I refer to as the marker rep. This means that instead of pushing for max reps, I only pushed as long as I could maintain a steady even rep pace. When I reached a rep that started to slow down, I stopped the set. In my case, I used a weight that would allow me to perform five reps using a steady even rep pace, but the sixth rep was my marker rep, which means that it marked the first rep within a set that was slower than the first five reps. My strategy was to stop after six reps. The marker rep usually occurs about two thirds of the way to failure, give or take a rep or two depending on the lifter.
When using marker rep training on a high frequency basis for six weeks, I gained strength. This was demonstrated by the fact that I was able to perform all six reps without being forced to slow down when I reached the sixth rep. Since I had gained strength, I started a new six week cycle with an additional five pounds. This caused my sixth rep to slow down again, but as I proceeded through another six week time period, the slowness of the sixth rep began to diminish until I could once again do six reps using a steady even rep pace.
After doing a set of six reps, I would do a second set consisting of fifteen reps. I used marker rep training for my second set as well. This means I used a weight that would allow fourteen reps using a steady even rep pace, but the fifteenth rep was a marker rep, which meant that it would start to slow down. After six weeks, I was strong enough to do all fifteen reps using a steady even rep pace.
At this point in my current training, I go more by feel than by pushing to my marker rep, but it still amounts to stopping about two to three reps short of failure for upper body exercises, and about four to five reps short of failure for squats and deadlifts. As the same weights grow easier to lift over time, it will naturally result in leaving more reps in the tank. This is what allows you to add weight at the start of each new training cycle without feeling as though you are getting closer and closer to failure every time you add weight. The start of each new cycle feels the same in terms of effort and how close you come to failure.
If you have been indoctrinated with high intensity training methodology, the type of training that I have just described will seem absurd at best. The high intensity gurus would probably place me in the category of being a Neanderthal because the type of training I believe in violates all of their training principles. The fact that I believe in high frequency along with stopping well short of failure would cause them to call both my intelligence and my sanity into question.
Consistency And Sustainability
I myself was once a high intensity advocate who believed in the infallibility and superiority of high intensity training, but the time came when my desire for results piqued my curiosity and led me to be open minded towards other types of training. After much trial and error, my experiences have led me to believe that high intensity is capable of producing rapid gains for a short time, but it lacks sustainability. If I want to get better over the long-term, consistency in the form of frequency delivers better results. However, I understand that this is only my experience as some can benefit from high intensity training for a long time.
The High Intensity Super Responders
I must be fair and put things in perspective as I conclude this article by saying that I am not against high intensity if it works for you. I don’t think it would be wise to bash Mike Mentzer, Ray Mentzer, Dorian Yates, and Aaron Baker. Tom Platz trained with as much intensity as anyone ever and may have developed the biggest, most muscular pair of legs of all time. The last thing I’m going to do is to try to convince Tom Platz that he doesn’t know how to train his legs correctly and that I know a training method that is better than his. I don’t think so.
Those who were famous for high intensity training were known not only for being huge, but they were enormously strong. Such lifters all seemed to be independent thinkers and were willing to depart from the training norms to train in a manner that delivered outstanding results for their own bodies.
Even though I am very aware that high intensity training has worked wonders for some lifters and bodybuilders, I would encourage anyone who has an unquestioning loyalty towards high intensity, as I once did, to be open minded; especially if you are not experiencing progress at the current time. If focusing on intensity isn’t delivering the results you want, consider shifting to a higher training frequency consisting of moderate intensity. Do this while gradually adding weight over time instead of killing yourself to outdo your previous best in every workout. Be patient and think long-term. Best of training to you.