Sometimes working out sucks. Your kids are sick, you have schoolwork to do, or you just feel plain lazy. We’ve all been there. That’s why we are always on the lookout for compelling research to prove to us that working out less can be just as efficient. (Did we tell you that confirmation bias is our favorite type of bias?)

A brand new study was just published that really caught our eye. A lot of strength studies are performed on untrained individuals (like the one from our last newsletter on 73 year old women). These people are preferred because they typically have significant (and easy to measure) changes over a training intervention of say 6-12 weeks.

This study looked at males that already worked out regularly, which is a bit unusual in the research world (all participants had to have worked out twice weekly for at least 6 months before entering the study). This is great as many of the people we see lift weights a few times weekly. Specifically, the study was looking at whether training 3 times a week or 6 times a week was best for strength gains and increasing muscle size.

The key to this study is that they used the exact same volume between the two exercise groups. Essentially the group that worked out three times per week was doing 4 sets per exercise, and the group working out 6 times per week was doing 2 sets meaning that each group did the same number of sets in a week.

The study had 15 men in each group and all exercises were completed to failure for between 6 and 12 repetitions.   They tested strength with a 1 rep max squat and a 1 rep max chest press. They measured muscle gains in a number of different muscle groups by assessing the actual size gains before and after using ultrasound.

The results? Drum roll please…….NO DIFFERENCE! YESSSSSS!

Overall both training frequencies were equal for increasing strength over the six weeks. For muscle size, the gains were similar, though not in all measured sites. GUYS PLEASE TAKE NOTE….for the guns (biceps) it was actually best to only train them three times weekly, not six.

So what have we learned from our last 3 newsletters on workout optimization that we are starting to implement ourselves?

• Workout to failure for each set and you don’t need to spend hours in the gym (13 minutes seemed sufficient for most folks)
• Use a wide rep range (think 3-4 sets ranging from 5-15 reps versus just aiming for 10 reps per set)
• If strength and muscle size are your goals, you can get away with working out just three times per week instead of six, but doing more sets on those days.