Deciding How Often to Train
There are a lot of factors that can go into deciding on training frequency. Here are a few factors to consider. It’s a decision that is different with each individual, and it really can be fine tuned to fit each individual.
Physical Age
When you’re a young boy or girl you can get away with training more than is optimal because your body is so young and resilient. As you age your ability to recover will decrease. If you train like you’re 20 when you’re 40 there won’t be as much longevity in it, or success.
Training Age
This just means how long have you been training. When you first start training any stimulus is a new stimulus. The longer you’ve been training the more specific training your training needs to be.
Injury History
Adopt a zero tolerance to injury policy. You can’t train or play anything when you’re injured. If you’ve got regular pain for example then a change in training philosophy may be needed. I’m talking about flexibility here. It seems everyone thinks they got injured because they’re weak even though they do strength training as their dominant training!
Balance your training
If you’re only doing 1 type of training then you could be creating some imbalances. Flexibility is severely lacking in a lot of people because of the prioritization of every other physical quality. You can’t create adaptations in every physical quality all at once and you can’t solve problems with the same methods that created them.
Plan
I love work ethic, drive, and consistency in training. But, if you’re training the same every week, all year, for years at a time you are not getting optimal results. Routine for the sake of routine doesn’t create champions or optimal health.