The Thib System — Training
Frequency and Rest Periods
Basic Principles Behind My Updated Training Philosophy
by Christian Thibaudeau


We knew we were looking at something special when we opened
the huge honkin' file in our inbox. For us training wonks,
articles like this one that discuss the science behind training
(along with giving us incredibly useful information) are pure
heaven.

Trouble was, this article, at over 7,000 words, was a bit too
much heaven. So, in order to spare your gray matter (and we're
not talking about your underwear) and keep our servers from blowing
up, we've split this article into 4 parts.

This is part 3. You can find part 1 here and part 2 here.

— The Editors

Welcome back. Last time I went over the 2^nd part of
my training principles. Today it's time to chow down on the third
course. Say grace and dig right in.


Principle #5: Ideal Training Frequency
Training frequency per body part is the "single-set vs. multiple
sets" of this decade. In the late '70s and early '80s, the raging
debate was between proponents of single-set training versus those
who preferred the high volume approach.
It was Arthur Jones vs. the Weiders; Mentzer against Arnold. The
debate was never truly settled because, in some regards, both camps
were right. But at the same time, neither of them were the
indisputable truth.

The fact is that both low and high volume training have their
own pros and cons and can be used effectively given the right
circumstances.
The same can be said about training frequency. Just like with
the volume debate, the frequency fisticuffs continue. I can
guarantee you that one camp will never get to break out into "We
Are the Champions" for the simple reason that both absolutist sides
are right... and wrong!
There's no such thing as a perfect training frequency per muscle
group. Only optimal training frequency based on the other training
variables, your lifestyle, and your recovery capacity. There are,
however, some broad guidelines that can be used to select the
optimal training frequency that you need to use:

• The harder you work a muscle group during a session, the longer
  it'll need to recover. If you typically perform super draining
  workouts (either via high volume or intensive methods), your
  training frequency per muscle group will need to be lower than if
  you don't kill the muscle every time you hit the gym.
  

• The more muscle damage you create in a session, the more
  recovery time you'll need before the trained muscle(s) can be hit
  hard again. Muscle damage is mostly a function of mechanical work
  and eccentric loading. Most damage occurs in the 8 to 12 reps per
  set range (or sets lasting 30 to 60 seconds with a heavy load).
  When the eccentric portion of the movement is emphasized (via
  slower eccentrics, accentuated eccentric methods, or eccentric-only
  training) the damage is also greater.
  

This is why Olympic lifters can train on the competition lifts
six days a week. Olympic lifters rarely perform more than five reps
per set, and the eccentric portion is all but eliminated because
the bar is dropped to the floor at the end of every lift. Low
mechanical work plus no eccentric equals the capacity to train the
lifts extremely often.

• Training frequency is also dependent on the level of nervous
  system fatigue that's induced during each training session. If you
  don't tire out the nervous system, you can obviously train more
  often. However, at some point the CNS must be challenged if it's to
  become more resilient.
  

• The more often you can stimulate a muscle without exceeding
  your capacity to recover, the more you'll progress. First, you must
  actually stimulate the muscles to grow. Sure, you can
  perform a few sets of easy exercises everyday (even several times a
  day), but if none of these "sessions" represent a challenge,
  there's no stimulation.
  

Then there's the aspect of exceeding your capacity to recover.
You can be 100% convinced that super-high frequency training is the
Holy Grail of muscle growth, but if you aren't allowing your body
to recover, you simply won't progress! You must strike the perfect
balance between stimulation and recovery to progress optimally.
So what frequency do I recommend? Again, it's an individual
thing. It depends on training style and what's going on outside of
the gym (i.e. that thing called "life"). But, assuming you're
training according to my new principles, the optimal training
frequency per muscle group is two sessions every five to seven
days.
Those with a good recovery capacity or a stress-free life can
aim for two sessions per muscle group every five to seven days.
Individuals with an average recovery capacity or a more demanding
life should shoot for two sessions every eight to ten days.
It isn't written in stone that every single muscle group has to
be hit directly with this frequency. Indirect work (e.g. triceps
getting some work when the chest is being trained) can also be
factored in.

If you're to hit each body part twice every five days, or in
other words, using a three-day cycle with one day off, a good split
looks like this:

Day 1: Chest and back
Day 2: Lower body
Day 3: Arms and shoulders
Day 4: Off
Day 5: Repeat
Or if you're more of an upper/lower kind of guy:

Day 1: Lower body
Day 2: Upper body
Day 3: Trunk (abs and lower back)
Day 4: Off
Day 5: Repeat
These two options are for those with a great recovery capacity and little life stress (you must have both going for
you).
If you have either a good recovery capacity or little stress
then a six-day cycle will be a better option for you. You can go
with any one of these three options:

Day 1: Chest and back
Day 2: Lower body
Day 3: Off
Day 4: Arms and shoulders
Day 5: Off
Day 6: Repeat

Day 1: Lower body
Day 2: Off
Day 3: Upper body
Day 4: Trunk (abs and lower back)
Day 5: Off
Day 6: Repeat

Day 1: Whole body
Day 2: Off
Day 3: Lower body
Day 4: Upper body
Day 5: Off
Day 6: Repeat
If you're average (or below) in your capacity to recover and/or
your life is a mess, you should bump it up to a seven-day cycle.
You then have these options:

Day 1: Chest and back
Day 2: Off
Day 3: Lower body
Day 4: Off
Day 5: Arms and shoulders
Day 6: Off
Day 7: Repeat

Day 1: Lower body
Day 2: Off
Day 3: Upper body
Day 4: Off
Day 5: Trunk (abs and lower back)
Day 6: Off
Day 7: Repeat




Day 1: Whole body
Day 2: Off
Day 3: Lower body
Day 4: Off
Day 5: Upper body
Day 6: Off
Day 7: Repeat

Day 1: Whole body
Day 2: Off
Day 3: Whole body
Day 4: Off
Day 5: Whole body
Day 6: Off
Day 7: Repeat

Day 1: Pushing muscles (chest/shoulders/triceps)
Day 2: Off
Day 3: Lower body
Day 4: Off
Day 5: Pulling muscles (back/biceps/forearms)
Day 6: Off
Day 7: Repeat
Obviously, you might need to experiment to find the right
approach for you. It's also possible that as your recovery capacity
improves, you might be able to increase the training frequency.
In regard to two-a-days, what's been said still applies. When
you're doing two sessions a day, you should be training the same
muscle group(s) during both sessions, so you aren't increasing the
frequency of training days per muscle. You're simply splitting up
the amount of work into two micro-sessions instead of a single
macro-session.



Principle #6: The Proper Rest Intervals are Goal Dependent
The amount of rest between sets is an often-neglected variable.
I'm not the kind of guy who's super anal about this. If you take 65
seconds instead of 60, I won't have a heart attack! But, having
some kind of guideline to use keeps you in line for the proper
training effect.
The amount of time you rest between sets will affect several
factors that are important in the adaptations brought on by your
training. The length of the rest period:

• Affects the partial or complete restoration of the short-term
  energy substrates necessary for maximal performance
  

• Allows for the clearance of the metabolites accumulated in the
  muscle following intense muscular work (which can be either a good
  or bad thing depending on your goal)
  

• Permits the CNS to recover
  

• Slows down the elevated metabolic rate/heart rate (again, a
  good or bad thing depending on your goal).
  

1) Rest periods for strength: If your main goal is strength, the
length of the rest intervals should be long enough to allow the
nervous system to recover almost completely, but not so long that
you lose what's called the post-tetanic potentiation (PTP) effect.
The PTP effect refers to the phenomenon by which your contraction
strength potential will be increased for up to five minutes after a
heavy set because of a greater neural activation.
The peak effect (greater potentiation) occurs around two to
three minutes after a near-maximal contraction. The effect then
gradually loses its effect so that it's gone by around the fifth
minute. So when training for strength, you should rest around three
minutes between sets of the same exercise.
You'll still have the full potentiation effect with less rest,
but you'll also have some neural and/or muscular fatigue which will
counter the PTP effect. When you're doing a proper strength
session, you should actually become stronger with every set of an
exercise (until cumulative fatigue sets in after four or five
sets).

Note that I mentioned three minutes between sets of the same
exercise. If you alternate two exercises for opposing muscle
groups, you can have less time between sets, provided that you
still have the three minutes between sets of the same movement. For
example, if you alternate the bench press and weighted pull-ups,
you might do as follow:
A1) Bench press
5 sets of 5 reps
90 seconds rest
A2) Weighted pull-ups
5 sets of 5 reps
90 seconds rest
Which would look like this:

First set of bench press
Rest 90 seconds

First set of pull-ups
Rest 90 seconds

Second set of bench press
Rest 90 seconds

Second set of pull-ups
Rest 90 seconds
And so on and so forth.
So while the rest between sets is actually 90 seconds, you have
around three to four minutes of rest before hitting the same
muscles again.
By the way, the above alternating of two opposing muscle groups
or movements is the best way to train for strength. And not just
because I said so:

• It allows you to do more total sets without training for too
  long.
  

• It makes sure that opposing muscle groups receive the same
  training stimulus.
  

• It has been shown that contracting a muscle group before
  working its antagonist will increase the strength in the later
  exercise.
  

2) Rest periods for size: When using the big compound movements
for building size, we want to use rest intervals that aren't that
far off from what we would use in a strength protocol.
As mentioned earlier, when you're using compound movements you
don't want to create excessive CNS fatigue, so you should rest long
enough to allow for at least a near-maximal neural recovery between
sets.
The goal of the compound movement when training for size is not
to burn, destroy, or annihilate the muscle, but to progressively
use more weight in the proper size-stimulating zone (6 to 8 and 8
to 12 rep ranges). So when using compound movements for size, you
want to take around two minutes between sets of the same
exercise.

For the isolation work you perform, fatigue, especially
cumulative muscle fiber fatigue, is the main goal. So rest
intervals should be shorter. Not so short that your strength drops
off too much from set to set, but you should try to gradually take
less rest over time.
When training for size, a strength drop-off of 5% per set of
isolation work is acceptable, and a total drop-off from the first
to last set of 20% is a good target. In other words, shoot for a
reduction in performance of 20% between your first and last set of
an isolation movement. This reduction can either come from reps or
load.
For example, if on the first set you perform 12 reps with 140
pounds, a 20% reduction could mean:

Doing 9 reps with 140 pounds on the last set
Or...

Doing 12 reps with 110 pounds on that last set
If you can't achieve a 20% drop-off in four sets of isolation
work, it means that you're either not training hard enough or that
you're taking too much time between sets.
For isolation work when training for size, the rest intervals
should be anywhere from 30 to 75 seconds.
3) Rest periods for fat loss: When training for fat loss, you
should always shoot for incomplete recovery, meaning that you must
accumulate an oxygen debt from set to set. Your breathing should
stay hard and heavy for the whole workout. If you can talk normally
during a fat-loss workout, you aren't training properly! So the
rest intervals should be shorter, even with compound movements.
How short? Well, again, this depends on your level of
conditioning and work capacity. Since the goal is incomplete
recovery, get back to work before your breathing normalizes!
During a fat-loss program, you should feel out of breath and
almost nauseous during the whole workout (the nausea is mainly due
to the increase in lactate/lactic acid production).
You should rest anywhere from 15 to 60 seconds between your sets
with a tendency toward gradually reducing the amount of rest you
take.



This isn't the end of the line. There are still
principles to cover. Part 4 of Thib's opus magnum will explore
progression and now often to change your program.



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