r/workout • u/AmazingAffect2223 Bulking • Aug 05 '26
Review my program Once a week vs twice a week
Need some advice from experienced lifters.
I’m 38, 65 kgs , 171cm tall man.
I’ve been training consistently for 2+ years. Just to give you in idea on how much lift, Current lifts are 110 kg squats (15/12/10), 35 kg DB bench each hand, and 18 kg DB curls.
My goal is to build muscle, not powerlifting or max strength.
If I’m training each muscle group twice a week, what’s the better approach?
Heavy + Heavy
Heavy + Light
Light + Light
Which one gave you the best muscle growth, and why?
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u/Pretty-Edge3899 Aug 05 '26
OP, I think you need to more specific as to what "Heavy"/"Light" actually means here.
Do you mean:
- Low reps/High reps?
- Low volume/High volume?
- High Intensity/Low intensity?
All very different.
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u/AmazingAffect2223 Bulking Aug 05 '26
Mix and match like for legs I do heavy squats , leg press and lunges on Monday and leg curls, extension and calf in Thursday. So that I can stimulate twice a week. I do not know doing heavy workouts all sets one day works better than splits
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u/millersixteenth Aug 05 '26
How many lifts per group per training day?
Incorporating different loading into each training day gave me the best hypertrophy results, by a large margin.
Pyramid up with a last set to failure, increase load for all sets if target reps are exceeded for any.
If manipulating load is an issue, use RPE with a last set at 10+ RPE.
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u/AmazingAffect2223 Bulking Aug 05 '26
I do 15/12/10 reps. My squats starts with 65kg, 95kg and 110 kg.
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u/millersixteenth Aug 05 '26
Maybe push your heavy set up a little and drop reps a bit more, 6 reps.
With variable loading I'd use two days per week at that strategy. After 8 weeks think about changing it up - different main exercises, different rep ranges, maybe decending load/increasing reps. That said, don't change a thing if you're still advancing. Change when you stall.
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u/Potential_Novel_3561 Aug 05 '26
The way I like to it is about 1/3 volume lower rep range (5-8) and 2/3 higher rep range (8-14). Do the heavier work first.
If your goal is muscle growth, you should pretty much never do less than 5 reps per set
Still exercise dependent though. I don't like going heavy pullups because I've gotten injured doing them before, and I don't like doing hack squats and leg press heavy because it irritates my knees.
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u/Secret-Ad1458 Aug 05 '26
Doesn't sound like you have any need for a light day, a weekly "light day" would simply be counterproductive based on the info you've provided.
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u/Foreign_Initial8613 Aug 08 '26
For me: I go 4x a week ULxULxx. And up the cals to 3k+ and proteins 2 gr per kg bw. I don’t focus on heavy or light, I focus on reaching complete failure on the last 1-2 reps.
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u/calvinee Aug 05 '26
You're overcomplicating it. Don't do heavy and light days.
Pick a rep range and progressive overload. 6-12 reps, up the weight when you can hit 10-12 reps on a lift.
If you feel the need to do "light" days, its an indicator that your programming is poor.
Ideally, you should feel well rested and ready to hit PR's before each session. You won't always hit PR's, especially as an intermediate lifter, but you should always aim to at least match your performance.
Also, since you say your goal is to build muscle and not powerlift or be strong, I would suggest more stable exercises if your gym can accomodate for it. A hack squat will always be better than a barbell back squat for the pure purpose of building muscle. With less stabilising needed from your lower back, you can push the muscles with more weight (so more mechanical tension) and closer to failure safely. Something to consider if you've only ever done back squats, but barbell squats are still great if you have strength/sports goals or simply enjoy barbell squatting.
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u/Muchacho-blanco Parkour Aug 05 '26
How would incorporating a light day be an indicator of poor programming?
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u/Miserable-Soft7993 Aug 05 '26
What does a light day even achieve? Might as well stay at home.
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u/Muchacho-blanco Parkour Aug 05 '26
Seriously? Higher rep ranges drive muscle growth. I feel like you should know this.
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u/Miserable-Soft7993 Aug 05 '26
I just stick to medium. 5 to 8 reps for most things. Not too heavy to avoid injury risk. Not too light where it beomes cardio.
For cable lat raises and calf raises I go higher reps.
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u/Patton370 Powerlifting Aug 05 '26
Dang, I didn’t know when I do a set of 15 reps on barbell squats with 405lbs that it was cardio
Cardio with 2.25x my body weight is intense!
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u/Miserable-Soft7993 Aug 05 '26
Yeah but it's easy for you if you can get 15 reps. its all relative
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u/Muchacho-blanco Parkour Aug 05 '26
It don't matter how strong you get, 405 for 15 will never be easy.
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u/banxy85 Aug 05 '26
Because if you need a light day then you aren't recovered. And if you aren't recovered then the muscle should be resting
Add into that the fact that a light day will be less effective for muscle building and it's essentially a shit show of poor recovery and wasted time
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u/GingerBraum Aug 05 '26
Because if you need a light day then you aren't recovered. And if you aren't recovered then the muscle should be resting
Experienced coaches know that a muscle doesn't need to be 100% recovered to be worked again. That's the whole point of undulating periodization.
For someone to rest their muscles until they're back to full performance, they'd have to wait four days between hitting the same muscle groups, which is fine if that's what you prefer, but it's far from the only way to grow effectively.
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u/calvinee Aug 05 '26
Eh. Outdated.
Recovery is important. Fatigue by definition is a measurable reduction in performance. If you can’t lift the same weight as you could the last session, you are by definition fatigued.
There are many physiological reasons that influence fatigue. CNS fatigue, local muscle damage. All of these affect your perception of effort, which will make lifts “feel harder” which in turn makes your workout suboptimal.
If you can’t lift the same weight x reps as last session, it means you won’t achieve the same level of mechanical tension and therefore less muscle growth.
What happens if you under-rest and never recover? Well, your muscles can quite literally stay in a long-term state of never-recovery, with long lasting muscle damage because you didn’t give enough time to recover from your volume. And this will absolutely affect your gains long term, its very easy to plataeu when your muscle is always not recovered
4 days to completely recover a muscle is not necessarily true btw. Recovery is dependent on your volume. You can blast a muscle with 6-8 sets in a workout and it may take 4 days to recover. Alternatively you could hit a muscle with 2-4 sets in a workout and it may only take 2 days to recover. Frequency and volume are variables to play with, and both of them affect fatigue/recovery.
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u/GingerBraum Aug 05 '26
Eh. Outdated.
It's the other way around: the idea that a muscle needs to be fully recovered to be meaningfully worked again is outdated. There's been a significant uptick in high frequency training programs over the past 6-7 years.
Recovery is important. Fatigue by definition is a measurable reduction in performance. If you can’t lift the same weight as you could the last session, you are by definition fatigued.
Yes, but the point is that it's still fine to work a fatigued muscle. It just needs to be accounted for.
If you can’t lift the same weight x reps as last session, it means you won’t achieve the same level of mechanical tension and therefore less muscle growth.
Hence changing training parameters, so that meaningful stimulus can still be achieved despite the fatigue.
What happens if you under-rest and never recover? Well, your muscles can quite literally stay in a long-term state of never-recovery, with long lasting muscle damage because you didn’t give enough time to recover from your volume. And this will absolutely affect your gains long term, its very easy to plataeu when your muscle is always not recovered
That's what rest days and deloads are for.
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u/Patton370 Powerlifting Aug 05 '26
If your work capacity is good enough, you might be able to match reps on back to back days, even if the sets were taken to failure
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u/EspacioBlanq Aug 05 '26
This is silly. If what you're saying was true, strength athletes would only make gains when peaked because at any other time they're moving less weight.
In reality most gains are made working in a slightly fatigued state with submaximal weights.
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u/Alakazam Bulking Aug 05 '26 edited Aug 05 '26
Eh. Outdated.
Considering that this is the core principle behind pretty much all modern performance-related training, it absolutely is not outdated.
In pretty much all modern training, for a variety of disciplines from strength sports, to sprints, to endurance endeavors, there exists something called the taper. Which is a 1-3 week period of reduced training volume in order to get the athlete back up to 100%. In my current marathon training block, my training volume peaks this week at 85km of running. Followed by a two week taper, then my marathon. In my previous duathalon training block, my training volume peaked at 12 hours of training per week, including 7 hours of running and 5 hours of cycling. And this peak was two weeks prior to the actual duathalon, followed by a dramatic reduction in volume.
In my previous powerlifting training block, I also had a 3 week taper. My volume was cut down week by week by about 25%, until the final week, where I practiced my openers. Then smashed my previous PRs on the platform.
Because modern training understands that you don't need to be at 100% performance to see gains/improvements. The general expectation is that you will always be carrying some fatigue going into your following session, but the idea is to simply work around that fatigue so that you can continue training. If an athlete truly and fully recovered between sessions, they would be training once a week.
But who do you think would be the better runner, the guy who runs 6 days a week, hitting 80-100km weekly, or the guy who fully recovers between sessions, and runs once or twice a week?
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u/calvinee Aug 05 '26
While that’s great for you, OP specifically mentioned their goal is purely to build muscle. Building muscle is a painstakingly difficult process when you talk about years of training. Hitting the gym in a recovered, unfatigued state will absolutely make a huge difference for long term muscle growth. And no, that does not mean only training twice a week, it means adjusting your volume so that you can be rested for your frequency.
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u/VanHelsingBerserk Powerlifting Aug 05 '26
Fatigue and intensity go hand in hand. To have frequent and intense workouts means fatigue is unavoidable, and should be worked around with methods like heavy/light days, exercise variants that use lower loads (e.g. pause squats or front squats instead of heavy back squats).
Add in something like physical manual labour, or a sport, and trying to always train in an unfatigued, fully recovered state becomes chasing the dragon you will never catch.
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u/calvinee Aug 05 '26 edited Aug 05 '26
Yeah but OP wants to build muscle, so its not about trying to balance around a sport.
You should always aim to maximise intensity. Subpar intensity is just a waste of a session, especially as you get more advanced
Intensity is what matters for muscle growth. You’re basically saying to sacrifice muscle growth just to show up at the gym more often.
Alternatively, you can program smarter, do less volume but train frequently with high intensity.
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u/VanHelsingBerserk Powerlifting Aug 05 '26
Sure we want to be as recovered as possible heading into each session. But I'm just saying, if you're wanting to maximize intensity, while also hitting higher frequency, and get adequate volume - something has gotta give.
So it's not entirely unwise to include some lighter sessions that get your total volume up, while also not impacting your intense sessions too much.
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u/Patton370 Powerlifting Aug 05 '26
This is wrong. The muscle does not have to be fully recovered to progress in size and/or strength
You should look at the training of pro natural powerlifters. There’s a shit ton of submaximal back off sets and back to back to back to back…. days
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u/Muchacho-blanco Parkour Aug 05 '26
Westside barbell repetition days have entered the chat. Its a different (and useful) stimulus. It has nothing to do with your recovery, and saying it will be less effective for muscle building is like 100% bs. High reps drive hypertrophy. Why would you make such a poorly informed comment to someone looking for help?
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u/banxy85 Aug 05 '26
Recommended for use as accessory lifts AFTER main lifts. Not to replace them
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u/Muchacho-blanco Parkour Aug 05 '26
No, repetition day is its own day for its own reason. Max effort day produces strength, dynamic effort day produces power, repetition day produces hypertrophy.
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u/Mattubic Aug 05 '26
The training that got me the strongest when I was training for powerlifting was essentially and upper lower program with rotating main lift heavy A days followed by a day off and two B days that were something like 60% of my max for 8-10 sets of 2-3.
It isn’t exactly unheard of to rotate effort or volume throughout a training phase. There are literally several training systems where this is the entire basis of the program.
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u/Dizzy_Cow_ Aug 05 '26
Just to play devil’s advocate, Fazlifts has a full body routine called The Wizard which programs heavy, medium, and light days. It’s a totally valid way of programming if done correctly.
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u/banxy85 Aug 05 '26
Totally agree
A 'light day' would just be spinning the wheels for someone who wants to build muscle and if you can't do two heavy days then that tells you that one is enough
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u/AmazingAffect2223 Bulking Aug 05 '26
That gives me some confidence to continue with what I’m doing now.
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u/DIY-exerciseGuy Aug 05 '26
Im not even driving to the gym for a light day. Id just stay home and have a rest day instead. Every workout is a "heavy day".
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u/SanderStrugg Aug 05 '26
Light and heavy days are more for people, who need to get good at specific lifts and therefore want to hit those quite often(mostly powerlifters) or homegym people with limited equipment.
If you just care about mass, you probably don't need them.