Train Through the Soreness

Some Thoughts and Insights to Help You Adapt to High-Frequency Training

     I extoll—more often than not—the benefits of high-frequency training (HFT) over other “systems” of training.  I put “system” in quotes because it’s not a system per se but more of an approach or a way of training.  Within HFT, you are capable of finding numerous, actual systems of training.

     What qualifies as HFT?  When I use the term, it refers to any program where you train a muscle group (or a movement) at least 3 days per week.  Most modern workout programs are either low (once every 5 to 7 days) or moderate (twice per week) frequency regimens.  Please understand that I am not “opposed” to programs that use either low or moderate frequency.  If you scour this blog, you will find that I have written numerous programs that use both low and moderate frequency.  There are times when such programs can be very beneficial.  There are segments of the lifting population that do respond well to either low or moderate frequency.  Some athletes, depending upon the goals of training, need to use either low or moderate frequency methods.  Just to give an easy-to-understand, easy-to-apply example, if you want to get really strong and powerful without gaining any weight or muscle whatsoever (a powerlifter that needs to stay in a weight class), then high-set, really low-rep (3 or less) workouts coupled with infrequent training (once per week) would work wonders.  That kind of training will also give you a dense, thick look to your muscles despite the fact that it’s not good at promoting muscle growth.  With that out of the way, and even though I’m not opposed to low or moderate frequency programs, and with the understanding that there are times when such programs can be beneficial, for most of your average lifters, a HFT program of some type—there are a lot of ways to do HFT—will be the most effective.

     In my last essay, “The Old-School Way,” I discussed the most common method used by bodybuilders of the ‘70s and before.  They would start with full-body workouts done 3 days per week.  Their approach to “intensity” was, what I call, an everything moderate method.  (We will get around to the “how” of that perspective shortly.)  They would start with 2 or 3 sets per exercise, using 1 exercise, on average, per muscle group.  They would slowly over the months add sets to their exercises and then additional movements.  Eventually, when they reached the point that their full-body workouts were lasting a few hours, they would then switch to a 2-way split program, training 6 days per week, and still training each muscle/movement 3 days per week.

     If you were to follow the old-school way to a tee, you wouldn’t run into the one issue that seems to plague the modern lifter more than anything else when they attempt a HFT routine.  What exactly is that one issue?  Soreness.  Plain and simple.  Many modern lifters start their training journey with a multi-split workout routine.  Even if they get good results from their programs, they will always encounter that problem.  If you train a muscle group hard with whatever method (high-volume or high-intensity or both) and then wait until you are no longer sore before training it again, you will never adapt to being capable of handling higher and higher workloads.  You will never develop a strong work capacity.  You will also—and this is more important than it might seem at first glance—never develop the capabilities to do, and handle, many and varied workout programs; you will be forced to stick with low-frequency models of training.  To excel as a natural bodybuilder/lifter, you need to be capable of doing all kinds of training.

     When I train lifters, I don’t want them to just think in terms of volume, intensity, rest, and recovery.  Please, don’t get me wrong.  Those concepts are important.  However, I prefer for lifters to think about their training in terms of the 3 training variables (volume, intensity, and frequency) along with rest and recovery, and work capacity.  If all of those concepts are in the mind of the lifter when she creates (or follows) a program, she will succeed.

     You can’t develop a strong work capacity unless you do some HFT.  You don’t have to always train in such a manner. Some lifters do need to train predominately with HFT.  Other lifters might need something else.  But all lifters should do some method of HFT a couple training cycles out of the year.

     In the ‘90s, I used a low-frequency approach.  If you read my early writings for Ironman or MuscleMag International, you will find that almost all of my programs followed that perspective.  Even when I recommended full-body programs, I often recommended no more than 2 days per week of training.  Now, there are times when that can be effective, and if you’ve never tried such a program, you will get great results from utilizing it.  (For more on that kind of training, read my recent article “Lift Big, Eat Big, Rest Big, Grow Big.”)  It wasn’t until the mid to late ‘90s, when I started powerlifting and following Bill Starr’s methods that I learned the importance of HFT and the need to train through the soreness.

     When I first started Bill Starr’s heavy-light-medium system, I was really sore after the heavy day to start the week, so I wondered how in the world I was going to train my entire body again on the light day.  I trained heavy on Sunday, light on Tuesday, and medium on Thursday.  In fact, I was so sore that I was worried I might pull a muscle on the light day.  That’s a common problem that lifters run into.  The key is to go ahead and train on the light day, but do a lot less than what is commonly recommended.  With Starr’s system, you should (at least, eventually) use around 80% of the heavy day’s workload on your light day and about 90% of the heavy day’s workload on your medium session.  At first, you might need to use as little as 25% of your heavy day workload for the light day and then 50% on the medium day.  For example, when I started it, I was already squatting close to 400 pounds on my heavy day, but on the light day, I did no more than 135.  On the medium day, I used 225.  As I adapted, I slowly increased the workload on both of those days until they were at the 80% and 90% marks.  That’s a process you can use—or something similar—if you’re in the same boat.  There are other ways you can go about it, however, so let’s look at those now.

     Another effective method is to follow the everything moderate technique mentioned earlier.  Start by training with a full-body workout 3 days a week.  Select a handful of big, compound lifts.  A good program to start with would be squats, overhead presses, chins, bench presses, power cleans, and curls.  Do just 1 “work” set of each of those movements after a couple of warm-up sets, but no more.  The workout should feel almost ridiculously easy at first.  However, I have found that even when lifters do an easy workout, they are still sore, often quite so, after their first workout.  Stick with just 1 set per movement for a couple of weeks.  After 2 weeks, increase to 2 sets per exercise.  Do that for another couple weeks, and then do 3 sets per exercise.  Some lifters will do fine with 3 sets per exercise and some will do better with 4 or 5 sets.  I would stick with 3 sets for several weeks, however, and see how you’re responding.  If you feel as if you could use a little more work at that point, then add another set or two.

     If you simply find it difficult to not train hard or you simply love doing so, you can follow the method recommended by George Turner.  Turner was a legendary bodybuilder, gym owner, and writer, who had a great physique into his 70s.  Using Turner’s method, go ahead and train hard on a full-body program.  You can use the same movements I discussed in the previous paragraph but start the program with 3 to 5 movements per lift.  After your first session, take off 3 full days before training again.  So, if you train on Monday, do your 2nd workout on Friday and your 3rd on the following Tuesday.  Stick with that for 2 to 3 weeks straight, then reduce your days off to 2, so that you are training on, say, Monday, Thursday, Sunday, Wednesday, and so forth.  After around 3 weeks of that, go to a 3-days-a-week program, training on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (or whatever 3 days you wish).  Once you’re training 3 days weekly, you can then slowly increase the amount of work you are doing at each session, rather than adding another day to your workout.

     No matter the program that you decide to follow, you need to do some form of load cycling.  This is especially true as you move toward even higher frequency programs.  Remember what I wrote at the start of the essay.  3 days per week is the minimum number of days to qualify as HFT.  This means that, as you progress, you need to move toward training each muscle group/movement 4, 5, or even 6 days weekly.  Six is pushing it.  I admit.  You don’t want to train that frequently for too long, though it undoubtedly has its place at times.  However, 4 and 5 days weekly is where I would “live at” with HFT.

     If you have been following a H-L-M full-body workout or a more “standard” everything moderate 3-days-a-week routine and getting good results but would like to try a little more overall volume, simply adding a 4th “light” workout is the way to go.  If you are doing a Bill Starr-style program, the easiest thing to do is to simply add another light session, one that has a slightly lower workload than your other light day.  Starr recommended following a H/L/L/M schedule.  If you were training Monday (H), Wednesday (L), and Friday (M) then you go to a Monday (H), Tuesday (L), Wednesday (L), and Friday (M) rotation.  That’s exactly what I did, as well, when I was using Starr’s system and wanted to add another session.  However, in the last couple of decades, I now prefer a H/L/M/L schedule.  If you were training Monday (H), Wednesday (L), and Friday (M), you would now go to a Monday (H), Tuesday (L), Thursday (M), and Saturday (L) schedule.  Your heavy day would stay the same as whatever you were doing beforehand.  Your medium session would be the same as whatever you were previously doing on your 3 day per week schedule.  But your light days can now both be the same workload as the one light day before.  This is different compared to how Starr recommended it.  On his original system, when you added another light day, you used a workload below your other light day.  Using my system, however, that’s not necessary.

     If you were doing an everything moderate program, you can have 3 of the days the same, but you just drop the workload slightly on your 2nd training day.  So, if you were training M/W/F, you go to a M/T/TH/S schedule and the only day that is now “light” is the Tuesday workout.  You can also just rotate back and forth between “heavy” and “light” sessions, so that Monday and Thursday are heavy and Tuesday and Saturday are light.  A 3rd option, for the mature lifter, is to simply train “instinctively,” and train light whenever you feel as if you need it.  If you have a hard time “backing off” in your training, even when you know that you probably need it, then you should use a more systematic method.

     If you want to train 5 or 6 days per week, I recommend an easy strength method.  The best one to start with is probably my 30-Rep Program.  Read that article for more details.  Easy strength methods, in addition to being “easy” to do, are also a simple way to teach your body to train through the soreness.  Since you are doing only 10 reps max on each lift, soreness is almost non-existent.  You can use easy strength as a way to prep your body for more voluminous, more intense, but still frequent workouts.

     The one problem some lifters have with the easy strength methods of training, even when they get good results from it, is that they miss training hard.  If that’s you, then read my article on Hybrid Easy Strength.  It contains a simple way to combine easy strength with the (occasional) hard workout.

     Don’t let your sore muscles hold you back from taking advantage of HFT.  Follow some of my tips here and train through the soreness.

     If you want to learn more about Bill Starr’s H-L-M system of training, then purchase my new book “The Strongest Shall Always Survive: Lifting Lessons from an Iron Legend.”  It contains a chapter on how to use a 4-days-per-week model, as well.  You can find more information on it, and all of my books, in the My Books page.

     And, if you want even more information on HFT, then do a search on the blog for “high frequency training” and/or “easy strength” and you’ll find plenty more articles, along with programs, in addition to this one.