Training frequency: How often should you train each muscle group?

You've got the motivation, a gym membership and a shaker full of Voxberg protein.. So what now? Which muscles should you train and how often? We're happy to show you how to put your own training plan together.

Low frequency

If you're a beginner, low-frequency training is ideal for you. It lets you focus on technique and breathing without being overwhelmed by a huge number of reps or by the intensity.

This type of training involves training each muscle group once a week. On one day, work your upper body – chest, shoulders, back, biceps, triceps and abs. Just 2 – 3 exercises per muscle group will do.

The next day, focus on your lower body – quads and hamstrings, glutes, calves. Leave a 48-hour gap between sessions so your body can recover properly. You can gradually add more sessions and work out 3 or even 4 times a week.

Handy tip: Go for so-called compound movements, in other words exercises that work several muscles at once. In the squat, for example, it's not just your thighs doing the work, but also your abs, hamstrings, glutes and calves. You can read about how to squat properly in our blog.

Once you've got the exercises down, your back isn't arching, you're keeping your body tight and your pelvis tucked, you can start switching them up.

With a low frequency you won't see big changes from one day to the next and your muscles won't grow all that fast. At the start of your fitness journey, though, it's important to learn the right technique instead of rushing in head first. Bad habits are hard to unlearn later on.

The benefits of low-frequency training

• you pay attention to balance and lifting technique,
• you lower the risk of injury,
• you focus on quality, not quantity.

High frequency

This type of training involves training each muscle group several times a week. That means if you train arms on Monday, for instance, you'll hit them again on Thursday and Sunday. Planning your sessions can be a little trickier, because you're basically putting together a fitness jigsaw in your calendar.

You can adjust both the intensity and the focus of your sessions to suit your goal and your stamina. Don't forget about developing your whole body, so you don't build up imbalances or overload individual muscle groups.

With high-frequency training you:

• reduce muscle soreness by performing the exercises more often,
• trigger muscle protein synthesis more frequently,
• guarantee a higher training volume, which leads to hypertrophy, i.e. the growth of muscle cells.

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

To hold on to those hard-earned muscles, you need to plan not just regular training, but recovery and enough protein too. If you don't fancy eating 8 eggs for breakfast and 2 kilos of chicken breast for lunch every day, take a look at our Voxberg proteins. You can read about why protein matters in this article.

Trained hard and now you can barely move? Read about what actually works for post-workout muscle soreness, or take quality BCAA amino acids with a low or even zero sugar content.