Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Research Review: James Krieger on “How Much Does Training Frequency Matter?”

Episode Date: May 23, 2018

Optimal training frequency is a hotly debated subject. Some people believe that you must train your entire body 2 to 3 times per week or you’re simply doing it wrong, whereas others believe it doesn’t make that much of a difference. Recommendations run the gamut from extremely low workout frequencies (training each major muscle group once per week or less) to extremely high frequencies (training each muscle group 4, 5, or even 6 times per week). Who’s right? That’s what James Krieger and several other researchers wanted to find out in a meta-analysis that was just published just this year in the journal Sports Medicine. They combed through 22 different studies that compared how higher and lower training frequencies affected muscle and strength gains, and in this episode, James is going to break down exactly what they found. You’ll learn how training frequency affects strength gains, how to adjust your training frequency when you progress beyond your “newbie gains,” when increasing your training frequency does more harm than good, and more ... 6:23 - Does training frequency and high loads effect your gains when you’re new to weightlifting? 8:08 - What is double progression? 11:02 - What are the effects of resistance training frequency on gains? 20:11 - At what point do you have diminishing returns? 23:09 - Do protein synthesis levels drop after 48 hours? 30:34 - Where can people find you and your work Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

Whether you're training a bro split, let's say, you're training each exercise once per week, or whether you're training more frequently, let's say three or four times per week, the data suggests it probably doesn't really matter as long as you're doing roughly the same volume each week. Hey, this is Mike from Muscle for Life and Legion Athletics. And as you probably know, I work pretty hard to understand and promote high quality diet, nutrition, and exercise science. And that's why I have spent and continue to spend quite a bit of my time researching and then writing articles, writing books, recording podcasts, recording videos, and so forth.

And that's why I reference quite a bit of scientific literature in all of my work. Now, something I don't do though, is produce a research review where individual studies are broken down and analyzed because one, my plate is already overflowing with projects as it is. And two, I honestly don't think that I could do it better than the researchers who are out there creating research reviews and whose work and research reviews I myself read regularly, like James Krieger, Eric Helms, Greg Knuckles, Mike Zordos, Alan Aragon, and Brett Contreras. And so I had an idea, why not get those guys to come on my podcast to discuss various studies that they have analyzed in their reviews and share with us

what they've learned and how we can use these key takeaways, how we can use the information in those studies to better optimize our diets, exercise routines, supplement regimens, and our overall lifestyle. Well, I reached out to them and they thought it was a great idea. And so a monthly series was born. Basically once a month, I'm going to have one of these guys on the show and they're going to break down a study that they have analyzed in their respective research reviews, and they're going to explain to us why these studies were conducted, how they were conducted, what the results were, what their interpretations of the results were, and how we can use the information to improve our diets, our training, our supplementation, or in some cases, just the overall quality of our lives.

supplementation, or in some cases, just the overall quality of our lives. If you want to know what the latest science has to say about training frequency and muscle and strength gain, then you want to listen to this podcast. And if you like it, please do spread the word. Please do tell people about what I'm doing here. It really helps me. Okay, so optimal training frequency. This is one of these hotly debated subjects that has really heated up more recently. Many people now believe that you must directly train every major muscle group in your body two or three times per week or more, or you are simply doing it wrong. Whereas others believe that it doesn't make that much of a difference really. And that's why we see all kinds of recommendations in terms of frequency ranging from extremely low workout frequencies,

like training each major muscle group just once per week up to extremely high frequencies, like training each major muscle group four or five or even six times per week. Yes, those make for some pretty grueling workouts. So who's right here? Well, that's the question that I posed to James Krieger in this interview, who, along with several other researchers, conducted and published a fantastic meta-analysis that was just published this year in the journal Sports Medicine. So what they did is they combed through 22 different studies that compared how higher and lower training frequencies affected muscle and strength gains. And in this episode, James is going to break down exactly what they found. He's going to give us the key takeaways. And you might be a little bit surprised, especially if

you are one of the people that have placed a tremendous amount of emphasis on frequency over everything else. This is where I would normally plug a sponsor to pay the bills, but I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in. So instead, I'm just going to quickly tell you about something of mine, specifically my one-on-one coaching service. So the long story short here is this is the personal coaching service that I wish I had when I started in the gym many years ago. Every diet and training program that we create for clients is 100% custom. We provide daily workout logs and do weekly accountability calls. Our clients get

priority email service and discounts on supplements, and the list goes on and on. Furthermore, my team and I have also worked with hundreds of people of all ages, circumstances, and needs and goals. So no matter how tricky you might think your situation is, I promise you, we can figure out how to get you results. If I have piqued your interest and you want to learn more, then head on over to www.muscleforlife.com forward slash coaching and schedule your free consultation call now. I'll tell you there's usually a wait list and new slots fill up very quickly. So if you're interested at all, don't wait. Go schedule your call now.

All righty. That is enough shameless plugging for now, at least. Let's get to the show. James, welcome back to the show. Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm excited to have you on because we're going to talk about today. Two things that are, I guess, kind of controversial. Although at this point, I feel like they probably shouldn't

be all that controversial because while yeah, there still are questions to be answered. I mean, that'll always be the case. It seems like we understand the gist now. And also this is one of these funny things that is really only, in my opinion, particularly relevant to the intermediate or advanced weightlifter who's really trying to achieve as much muscle and strength as possible. And just to not leave everybody hanging, what we're going to be talking about today are a couple studies on the effects of training frequency on muscle and strength gain. So how frequently you train a muscle group, how much does that matter?

What's optimal? And also high versus low load. So are heavyweights better for getting stronger and gaining muscle or are lighter weights or are they equally effective for those goals? And as a commentary, I get emailed about these things quite frequently. And it's often from people who are either new to weightlifting or have been weightlifting for some time, but just been doing everything wrong, basically. So they are effectively still new to weightlifting. I would say that these things really just don't matter that much in the beginning. Would you agree with that? Yeah, not a whole lot. When people are first

starting out, you can gain on just about anything. So, you know, there's no sense of when you're first starting out having just the right frequency or just the right volume. Or trying to get super fancy. That's what, that's what, it's a lot of like, you know, where people that are new to weightlifting will ask me about, um, how to set up a proper DUP program. Oh yeah. Yeah. There's absolutely no need for that. Why? You don't, you don't, let's just, let's just keep it simple. Why don't you just start with, you know, my program for bigger, leaner, stronger, right? It's just a push-pull legs with some accessory work. You could start there. Or you could start with if you want some more lower body volume, you could start with like a starting strength. You really don't need to get fancy until the simple stuff isn't working anymore, in my opinion. Yeah, exactly. I recommend the same thing. It's interesting. I'm actually working on a project right now that's basically going to be teaching trainers how to work with obese clients and stuff. And sometimes I see a lot

of trainers will put their obese clients on fancy periodized weight training programs. And I'm like, why? You don't need to. It's like, you know, just keep it simple and just do a, you know, just a typical, it can either be a real simple upper lower split, or even just like a whole body type program and just use like double progression. And really, that's all you got, you know, pick your rep range and do some double progression on it. And, uh, and that's seriously all you need to do. You want to just clarify, uh, clarify what that is for, for everybody listening. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So double progression just means, let's say you've got a certain rep range.

Let's say it's 8 to 12 reps. So double progression means you keep trying to do more reps each time you train. So if you did 8 reps with 100 pounds last time, you're going to try to do 9 reps this time, right? But once you exceed your rep range, once you get past, let know, let's say 12, let's say you can do 13 reps now, then you increase the weight and then you'll bump the reps back down, let's say to eight or nine when you increase the weight. And that's, so that's why it's called double progression. You progress in repetitions first. And then once your repetitions exceed a certain range, you bump the weight up and then you start the whole cycle over again. And people have gotten stronger and bigger on double progression

systems for decades and decades. And there's no need for any fancy periodization schemes to handle progression and things like that, especially in beginner lifters. There's no need for it. Yeah. I mean, that's exactly my basic programs for men and women. That's how they're set up. that's exactly my, my basic programs for men and women. That's how they're set up. And, uh, I mean, I've, I, I still actually use that sometimes myself because it works. It's, it's good. Oh yeah. I still use it myself. I mean, that's still, still my main source of progression. I mean, so yeah. Anyway, sorry. I just wanted to, I just want to make sure that, uh, the people listening to it knew what you're talking about, but anyways, that was, uh, that was in the context of for working with obese people and why get fancy with periodization when you can just use double progression. It's auto-regulated, so it's just based on how they're feeling, how they're doing. it should be as opposed to trying to force people to do things that especially when you're new,

you're probably uncomfortable with, or it can even increase the risk of injury. And I'm just speaking from experience of working with people where they've tried to be new to stick to fancier programs and not really understanding their limits and not having necessarily correct one rep max numbers and then trying to do things that they shouldn't be trying to do. Yeah, exactly. It's just really, it's just, just keep things simple. And plus, it makes it a lot easier. Someone's not progressing anywhere. It actually makes it easier to diagnose what the issue might be versus if you got some fancy periodization scheme and they're not progressing. And then you have all these other variables now that you've introduced that'll make it harder for you to figure out what's going wrong.

So, yeah, absolutely. Okay. So, let's start with the first study here that we're going to discuss. And, you know, I actually just realized we're going to, I'm going to separate these into two episodes. So for the people or for everyone listening in this first episode, we're going to talk about training frequency. And then in the next episode, we're going to talk about high versus low load. So let's talk training frequency. James, can you tell us about this study, what they did, what they found, and feel free to also give us any context. And this is an area where obviously you are very informed. So I'm just going to kind of hand you the mic here and listen and learn. Yeah. So this study, and I'm sure you're referring to the one published in Sports Medicine, just actually made 2018. So it was effects of resistance training frequency on gains and muscular strength, a systematic review and meta-analysis. The lead author is Gurdick. My friend Brad Schoenfeld is the second author on the study. And actually, I was one of the authors on this study as well. So what we did was we did what's called a meta-analysis. And so what that is, is where you take a large body of studies and you statistically analyze

them as a group. And what you're trying to do is kind of get an idea, okay, what's the overall trend among all the literature? It's just a very formal statistical way to figure that out. And so we gathered, I think it was 22 studies for the analysis. What we wanted to look at was how does training frequency affect strength gains? And when I say training frequency in the context of this paper, we're talking about the frequency with which you train a specific exercise. And then what we looked at is, okay, how does varying training frequency affect one repetition

maximum performance? And that was our metric of strength in this paper. And so what we did is, you know, put all the data together. I analyzed it and we found that the more frequently you trained, the greater your strength gains were. But there's a caveat to that. A lot of these studies were not volume equated. So what I mean by that is that let's say I'm doing a study and I compare a frequency of training and exercise once per week versus twice per week.

Now, there are two ways I could structure that study. I could have the people do three sets of the exercise once per week and three sets twice per week. And in that case, the volume is not equated. The weekly volume is not equated because the group that's only training once per week, they're doing a total of three sets per week. The group that's doing twice per week are actually doing six sets per week because they're doing three sets twice per week. So that's a total of six sets. So it's not volume equated. Just for anyone wondering, maybe it's something that if they're not too familiar with that aspect of training, why is that important? Some people it's obvious,

but I think it's worth just quickly saying why that's important. It's important because volume itself affects your gains. And there's pretty good data that suggests that the more volume you do, the more you train, the better results you will tend to get. Obviously, you want to be careful of things like overtraining and things like that. And by volume, are you just referring to the total number of reps? I'm actually referring to set volume in this. So the total number, I'm going to define volume as the number of hard sets that you do. So I would say that- The Greg Knuckles definition.

Yes, the Greg Knuckles definition. So like the number of sets to failure or to near failure, I would say so. So if you're doing three hard sets once per week, um, actually let's use four, four will be an easier example. So four hard sets once per week or four hard sets twice per week. Well, that's not volume equated because if you're doing four hard sets twice per week, that's actually eight sets per week, or you can do it volume equated. So you could do four hard sets once per week or two hard sets twice per week. And so that's volume equated. You're doing the same weekly volume, but you're splitting it up in how often you train the exercise.

Right. Now, obviously that'd be the better way to see how much frequency really matters. Yeah, because it takes volume out of the equation. And so that's what we did. We analyzed the data in two ways. And first, we looked at across all the studies and we found, yeah, there was an effect of frequency. But if we isolated our analysis to studies that were volume equated, then the effect of frequency disappeared, which would suggest that frequency really isn't really all that important in terms of your gains for any given volume. So whether you're training a bro split, let's say you're training each exercise once per week, or whether you're training more frequently, you know, let's say three or four times per week, the data suggests it probably doesn't really matter, you know, as long as you're doing

roughly the same volume each week. And that's, that's interesting. And that's actually something that, that Eric Helms has been saying. I remember seeing, I don't know how it came across. Somebody had sent it over to me because not to toot my horn at all, but I was saying that some time ago. And I was saying, I was just saying that that's based on my limited understanding. I'm not a scientist. I don't play on the internet. I look to people like you for answers and Eric and Brad and so forth. But I was just saying for what it's worth, that's what it seems to be for me or to me. And then some time ago, I had seen Eric say something similar. And then it's just as the research progresses, that's interesting just because probably people listening these days are hearing the – I've been so buried in work recently.

I haven't been paying too much attention to – I haven't been paying any attention to social media, but as of a few months ago, I know, and it probably just because trends being what they are, they tend to take time to die off. High frequency training is like, seems to be a thing these days, or at least it was a few months ago. And these are just random, you know, quote unquote experts and gurus and random Instagram coaches and stuff. We're really pushing that more frequent training is better period. And that frequency alone is the reason for it being better, not an increase in volume. Yeah. And that's, I wouldn't say I never jumped on that bandwagon, but I, for a period of time, I experimented with some higher frequency training myself.

For me, it didn't really work. All it did was give me my joints hurt and everything else. So yeah, same. I mean, I've done it and I was, yeah, I came to the same conclusion that if this is better than I just don't have the genetics or, uh, I'm not, I'm not on drugs, so I guess I just can't recover fast enough to, to make this work. Yeah. It's, um, I think it was popular. I know, you know, my friend, Mano Hanselman's, I think he's really into the higher frequency stuff, you know? Uh. So this is probably where I would probably disagree with him on it. I think really what the data shows is that frequency, you can use frequency as a tool to increase your volume, but the frequency itself really isn't all that important, which is actually a nice thing because then it means you can structure a training program based on really your personal preferences. I mean, if you're the type of person that just likes the typical bro split, you know what? It'll work fairly just as well as any other split, whether it's twice per week or three times per week or four times per week. And especially if you're new, and this is something I'm going to be updating my books for men and women this year, actually. And I actually don't want to change the training

programs because I'm pretty happy with where they are and how the volume breaks down between upper and lower body. It's a bit more upper body than your traditional strength training program for guys because let's face it, most guys, 80 plus percent are happy with their leg development before really anything in their upper body. The pecs, generally chest seems to be a stubborn muscle group for every guy out there. The pecs, generally chest seems to be a stubborn muscle group for every guy out there. And then the smaller muscles that we care about, the beach muscles, the shoulders, even the back, even the lats, the biceps, they all just take a lot of work to grow. But I want to change the name of those workouts because right now the name is, oh, if it's chest, let's say you're going to be doing some chest and shoulders and abs as opposed to and and then because quote-unquote bro splits anything that says a body part in it is automatically labeled a bro split and considered old fangled and just unscientific and all just bad programming oh but if it's a push workout now all of a sudden well that that's that's yes that's current that's good you know what i mean even though it's just different terminology for really the same. And it's not, it's not, I'm not, I'm not trying to deceive anybody. I just don't actually want

to change the programming because this program, I mean, bigger, leaner, stronger is meant for people that are new to weightlifting or new to proper weightlifting. Again, I like the overall picture. I maybe I'll tweak little things, but I wouldn't necessarily, I don't want to get fancy. I don't need to get fancy again. I want need to get fancy. Again, I want a good push-pull legs with some additional accessory work, more for the upper body and for the pretty muscles, especially for a new guy getting into weightlifting. If he can gain 15 to 25 pounds, depending on all the factors, doing that in his first year, what else do you want? You can't beat that. So anyways, that's just for people listening. What James said is it's just something worth noting that don't dismiss a workout program just because of how it might look at first glance. I go, that looks like a

quote unquote bro split or body part split. That's bad. It really depends, I think, on where you're at, how much time you have, what you're trying to achieve and how much you're willing to work for it. And that should dictate programming. And then coming to frequency, it's going to determine, you know, yeah, if you're an intermediate or advanced weightlifter who's trying to really get a lot out of or get the most out of your body, then you're going to have to work very hard. And would you actually be curious as to your thoughts on this, James. I don't know if there's any research specifically on this, but you're that person, right? You are that person, actually. I guess I'm that person as well.

For us to continue gaining any muscle and strength, it takes a tremendous amount of work. It takes a tremendous amount of volume compared to when we were just starting out. And it becomes impractical to try to do that all in one workout. And it probably, I mean, you would think there's a point, right, where there's a diminishing returns where it actually is factually better to split those workouts apart. Yeah, I would say theoretically, yes. We don't really have any data to know one way or the other. Although I know...

I mean, once you get beyond a certain amount of sets, right, the muscle building stimulus, so to speak, becomes weaker. Yeah, I mean, there's going to be a diminishing amount of returns, but we actually don't know where that is within any particular training session. I mean, it'd be great if we had like protein synthesis data or something like that to kind of look at, okay, well, where does the response plateau off? But we don't have, I mean, really there's only been a couple of studies looking at set volume and protein synthesis. And one of them, the subjects didn't even train to failure. So the only one we have is one where they compared one set to three sets of leg extensions. Well, yeah,

the three sets was better than one set, but they didn't test any volumes higher than three sets. So it's hard to say with any one training session. I know Brad's got a study. I don't know if it's already out or if it's going to be coming out. If it's in review, I don't remember. They compared a bro split to just training each muscle group twice per week. And the bro split was, I think it was a good, I think the weekly set volume per muscle group was, it was pretty high. I want to say it was like 18 weekly sets per muscle group, possibly 16, 18. It might've been 16. I don't remember. It was 16 or 18. I know it was in the high teens. And so there was actually no different. I mean, it was only a six or eight week study, but there was no differences in the

muscle gains between the groups, at least over six to eight weeks. Now that said, the group that split their training up into twice per week towards the end of the training study, they were showing better progression in their training load volumes than the other group was. So I'd say over a longer period of time, in that sense, probably splitting up the volume is probably works a little better, but at least over a short period of time, doesn't seem to make a whole lot of difference. Interesting. And it's also interesting that the sets were that high and it still didn't make, I mean, that much risk. I mean, you can imagine doing that reminds me of like the old days of sitting in the gym for two hours on chest day, just 18 sets for a workout.

Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it. It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say thank you. You can find me on Instagram at Muscle for Life Fitness, Twitter at Muscle for Life, and Instagram at Muscle for Life Fitness, Twitter at Muscle for Life, and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness. What are your, I'm curious to hear your thoughts. This is also, whenever there's a discussion about training frequency, usually someone mentions the, oh, protein synthesis rates only remain elevated

for like 24 to 48 hours after training. Therefore, you should be training every major muscle group every couple of days, every two or three days. What are your thoughts on that? For the people who are saying muscle protein synthesis is done after 48 hours, none of the data actually shows that. I mean, the data does show it tapers off. And so it's definitely lower at 48 hours versus let's say soon after a training session. But there are two studies that I know of that looked at, you know, what I would say fed state protein synthesis, which is really what matters. So the muscle protein synthesis after you ate a meal, because that's what you really want to look at. And they actually,

they also looked at what we'd call myofibril protein synthesis, which is the type, that's the type of muscle protein that is responsible for that actually creates the tissue that have for contraction, because there's older studies that looked at something called mixed muscle protein synthesis, but that doesn't really mixed muscle protein synthesis doesn't matter as much because that includes all muscle proteins that aren't necessarily part of actually making a muscle bigger, for example, things like mitochondria and stuff like that. And so you don't care about that. We just care about myofibril protein synthesis. So there's a few studies that looked at myofibril muscle protein synthesis, and they've actually

found even at 48 hours, it's still elevated. It's not as elevated as it is at 24 hours. Well, I'll give you one example. One study, they didn't even look at 48 hours. They looked at fed state muscle protein synthesis. I think it was 24 hours later. 24 hours later, it was elevated like 100% over baseline levels. And that's at 24 hours. So for somebody to tell me that, okay, it's going to be all done at 48 hours when at 24 hours, it's still elevated 100%.

I'm very skeptical of that. I know of another study that they used a newer technique for looking at muscle protein synthesis. And there was still some elevation at 48 hours. So the idea that it's done at 48 hours, it's not necessarily supported by the data there. I would say people that are saying that are extrapolating way too much from the existing data that's out there. The other thing I'll say that there's more to gaining muscle size than just muscle protein synthesis. You have to consider things like systemic recovery. You have to consider just recovery of muscle force production. You also have to consider the impact on soft tissues like

joints. So you can't just look at muscle protein synthesis and use that to help dictate, you know, what a training frequency response is. And the other thing I want to note is, you know, again, the people saying this, that the muscle protein synthesis response is done, you know, at 48 hours, that was with a fairly moderate amount of volume. There's nothing to say that if you did more volume in a session, that it might extend the response out even further. So, yeah, I just don't think it's smart to just base training frequency recommendations purely on muscle protein synthesis. In my research review, I actually did something, I called it the training frequency

bible. I examined all the different aspects of training frequency. So, I not only looked at muscle protein synthesis, but I also looked at recovery of muscle damage. I also looked at recovery of muscle force production. And then I did basically an updated meta-analysis on the effects of training frequency on hypertrophy, not just strength, but actually on hypertrophy. Basically, what I was finding is completely opposite of what the people who say, you know, that you need to base your training frequency recommendations just on muscle protein synthesis alone. Interesting. And something that sometimes

people don't consider is it really also depends what kind of exercise you're doing. So you'll say you're bench pressing on Monday and you're overhead pressing on Wednesday, looking at the shoulders. The shoulders are involved in the, yes, the overhead press is the direct shoulder exercise, but it's your shoulders are involved in your bench pressing and your pecs to some degree are involved in the overhead pressing as well. And, you know, it's also take squatting and deadlifting. They're both lower body exercises. And it's just, again, and the reason why I bring those things up is because I've had these discussions where I understand if they're just saying, hey, I heard this. I don't really know what to think. Can you help me out?

It gets very rote and robotic where it's like, if you are not performing the, let's say these six exercises at least two or three times per week, you are failing. And that's just not true. Yeah. And actually, you know, so my friend Brett Contreras also makes a good point sometimes when it comes to training frequency. Different exercises probably have much different recovery curves. And it may depend on how much muscle damage they cause and things like that. So for example, I'll use an example like a, any type of exercise that involves loading a muscle kind of in a stretched position. So an example might be, let's say, an overhead triceps extension, right? Because your triceps are kind of stretched out when you're doing the overhead movement. Or let's say like a Romanian deadlift where your hamstring is undergoing a good stretch at the movement. Those type of movements will likely take longer to recover from because they cause more muscle damage because the muscle is being loaded in a stretched

position, which tends to tear the sarcomeres and things like that. Now, compare that to an exercise, let's say, like a hip thrust, where the range of motion is relatively small and there's not very much muscle damage that occurs. Those type of exercises you can probably get away with doing more frequently because they don't cause as much damage. I mean, I recognize that myself an example. Again, I'll use triceps as an example. If I just do like one drop set or let's say kind of a, let's say a, a, a Berge-Faggerly

style mile rep thing with, with an overhead tricep extension, something like that. My triceps will be pretty sore versus if I do tricep press downs where my triceps are not loaded in a stretch position, I don't get the same soreness. So that's a perfect example of how different exercises may have different recovery curves. Yeah. Yep. That's a good point. And recovery is the other point that I'll bring up people with the muscle protein synthesis question is exactly what you just said. Even if that were true, go do some, a few sets, go three to five sets of five rep squats and you try to do it the next day. I mean, just see how you feel and just go by that. We don't, I mean, and give yourself, and then the

next time let yourself recover a few days to where, you know, you can actually, let's say minimally start with the same weight. And that's, that's obviously a first indicator that you are not recovered is if the weight that you were using in your last workout now feels tremendously heavy and you simply cannot get anywhere close to where you were last time, you're probably not recovered, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, great. Well, I think that covers everything on the frequency. Anything else that you, you think we should add on specifically on that no i just i just would tell people you know what use the frequency that you feel the recover the best and you feel like you perform the best with i mean really there's no magical frequency or or match there's no i would say optimal frequency

it's like a one size fits all they're just not out there yeah yeah there's no one size fits all yeah and i would add to that i would say if you're progressing, that's also a good sign. Like what don't, if it's not broken, don't try to fix it. If you're making progress and you're recovering from your workouts, you're enjoying your workouts. I mean, that's, that's it. That's everything. You've got it all. Yeah.

All right. Great. So James, where can people find you and your work? And also this would be a good time to tell them about your research review, because I know a lot of people that listen to these episodes are interested in research reviews. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you can go to my website, weightology.net. That's W-E-I-G-H-T-O-L-O-G-Y.net. I've got lots of stuff on there. I've got, you know, some, a lot of free articles on there. Yeah, I do a research review where I cover, you know, the latest research on basically anything dealing with, you know, modification of body composition, whether

it's fat loss or muscle gain, you know, I'll cover the latest studies. And then sometimes I'll cover older studies as well, because, you know, studies don't have expiration dates on them, you know, so I'll cover older studies. I have a Ask James section where people can ask me questions and I'll actually do the research for them. You know, if it's something I don't know, already know, I'll dig stuff up on PubMed and find out the answers. And some of my research review content is actually video content. So it's not just written research reviews. It's actually, I'll do video presentations talking about studies and things. So yeah, people can check that out. Yeah. Like I said, weightology.net is where to find me. Awesome. And do you offer a free, a free issue for people to check out on your website so they can

see what it's like? Yeah. So I've actually got on my site, if you go into the article section, I have a few, I think I've got a couple of video research reviews on there already. So you can at least get an idea of what they might look like. All right, cool. Well, for everybody listening, again, I highly recommend you check out James's work. He's one of the handful of guys whose stuff I follow regularly. And I came across your work a while ago when I was first getting into the space and immediately was like, ah, this guy knows things. He's going on my list of people to actually pay attention to. And we even have a science course coming out that James, I mean, James put it together. I'm

just being the editor, really. I'm just trying to make it as easily comprehensible as possible, but I'm excited about it because with how the evidence-based movement, fitness movement, so to speak, is getting bigger and bigger. And I don't think that's going to change. I think that there's just an overall macro trend toward science. And also people are naturally deferential to science, which is good and bad because it can be misused, obviously. And so the idea, and we see that in the fitness space where you have, again, coming back to the discussion of training frequency. So the people that I've seen, I'm not going to name anybody, people that I've seen that have made those claims that like anybody that says you shouldn't be training every major muscle group two or three times per week is a fraud type of black and white statements are simply misusing. Either they're just dumb and they don't know any better or they

do know what they're doing. They just know that from a marketing perspective, being contrarian or saying that they have the inside scoop. They're almost ahead of the curve as how they're doing. They just know that from a marketing perspective, being contrarian or saying that they have the inside scoop. They're almost ahead of the curve as how they're trying to use research, but they're misusing it. So the idea with the science course is we, and again, James did a great job of taking what would, there's a lot of work that goes into getting to his level of understanding, obviously, of being a scientist. But how do we boil that down so anybody in the course of a weekend can learn enough to become conversant in scientific research and be able to find research and come to reasonable conclusions about research. And so there's the benefit of if you want to answer your own questions and see what science has to say about, I mean, sure, health and fitness things, but theoretically about anything, if there's research out there,

everything that's discussed in the course is going to help you understand it, regardless of really what it's on. And then also to kind of fact check people that say things and that reference research, and you'll be able to then go and within a reasonable amount of time, let's say, give yourself, depending on the paper, maybe it's an hour, maybe two hours, maybe even less if it's a simpler study, could be even 30 minutes to know whether the person is probably right or probably wrong, or at least in the, in the, in the, uh, it seemed if, if, if their statements are reasonable or not. So anyways, I'm excited to get that out. That'll probably be, we have the manuscript more or less done. Um, I have some other digital courses on the runway. So I think a fall release

for the science course, which is not gonna be the name. We don't have a name yet, but, um, anyways, I just wanted to let everybody know, listening that we do have that coming and I'm excited about that. Yeah, I'm excited about it too. I think people can, will get to learn a lot, quite a bit from it. Absolutely. Well, thanks for taking the time, James. Really appreciate it. And again, everybody listening, go over to weightology.net and check out James's work. If you like my work, you will like his work. I guarantee you. Thank you. his work. If you like my work, you will like his work. or wherever you're listening from. This not only convinces people that they should check the show out, it also increases its search visibility and thus helps more people find their way to me and learn how to build their best bodies ever too. And of course,

if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then just subscribe to the podcast and you won't miss out on any of the new goodies. Lastly, if you didn't like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email at mike at muscleforlife.com and share your thoughts on how you think it could be better. I read everything myself and I'm always looking for constructive feedback, so please do reach out. All right, that's it. Thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon. And lastly, this episode is brought to you by me. Seriously, though, I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in. So instead, I'm going to just quickly tell you about something of mine, specifically my one-on-one coaching service. So the long story short here is this is the personal coaching service that I wish

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