Gym owners get this question almost daily: should I train 2, 3, 4, 5x a week!? There isn’t a perfect answer here and there certainly isn’t a “one-size-fits-all” number.
When my wife and I had our second child I decided I’d probably need to adjust my training schedule so before our second daughter was born I had decided that I would cut my training down from 6-7x a week to 4x a week.
I’ll preface this post by saying that I take my nutrition, rest, and recovery very seriously. I’ll also say that my life at this point is relatively low-stress. These are key components to investigate before you offer any advice to your clients about how often to train.
I started tracking my HRV last October to take my recovery (or lack thereof) to the next level. My lack of recovery and ability to handle training-induced stress was an eyeopener.
My training consisted of 4 main training session a week (2 max effort and 2 dynamic effort sessions), a longer aerobic session on my 4th day, and 1 strongman style session. To read more about my actual training check this article here.
What I discovered was that after the “aerobic” sessions, my HRV would tank, albeit we know aerobic work can actually facilitate recovery. This was very confusing.
After over a month of 4x a week training, my waking heart-rate is consistently the lowest it’s ever been, and my HRV scores are higher than they’ve ever been.
I should also mention that during this time where my recovery started to improve, my sleep patterns were far from normal, due to the baby waking up throughout the night. Prior to the baby arriving I was getting a consistent seven hours of solid sleep a night, and even so, my recovery was basically shit.
This got me thinking; why was my recovery in the tank after my “easy” aerobic session? I came to the conclusion that after 3 hard days of training, a 4th easy day was not going to necessarily alleviate the fatigue that I had already incurred, even though my sleep was on point.
This is one of the major differences in my approach now, training conditioning essentially every other day to help facilitate recovery between sessions.
I’m guessing that if I had placed this “recovery day” sooner in the week, the results could’ve been different. This is certainly something I’m going to play with the near future.
The end result is that I feel better than I’ve felt in a decade!
I have more energy when I train and I don’t feel rundown. In fact, this year is the first year that I feel “good” doing CrossFit Open workouts, almost as if I have more in the tank, instead of laying on the floor and feeling like death after.
I know I’m on to something because my HRV is actually proving to me that I’m not crazy, showing drastic improvements from training less. Oh and I look less tired which is an added bonus!
The point here is that we are a society that often thinks more is better. I’ve always been an advocate for listening to your body, but sometimes your mind can override what your body is telling you. This why a tool like HRV is incredibly valuable.
I get it, sometimes you just want to do a workout when you’re not feeling great in an effort to feel better. The shocking thing about this scenario is that my fitness is improving by training less.
My capacity has improved significantly and it’s mentally uplifting to think about doing open workouts and being able to have fun while doing them!
So when a client asks how often they should train, we should often start with the minimum effective dose and adjust from there.
As I previously stated, you must do your homework and learn about your clients’ lives outside of the gym in order to accurately access what the best course of action is.
Of course, there will be trial and error (that’s the best part of the learning process), but if your client has a dangerous job, a terrible diet, and only sleeps 3-4 hours a night, suggesting they increase their training frequency could be a disaster.
One other thing to consider is your client’s training age. On both ends of the spectrum, low vs. high, these folks can benefit from training less. Something to certainly keep in mind.
The bigger part of the equation as I’ve just shown you is what happens OUTSIDE THE GYM. Your recovery needs to be made a priority!
