Anyone done PPL once a week with success?

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darksoul999

New member
Used to it few years ago for about a year and was really consistent, gains were okay-ish. Never met anyone who had done this only 3 days a week so just wondering if anyone here has and what their experience was?

Possibly thinking about going back to it as recovery was really good.
 
@darksoul999 I’ve done it before for a decent amount of time and it worked well. I think most people would do better doing it 3 times a week instead of 6 which is common on here. Normally when I do PPL i don’t have a set amount of days I’ll train and probably averages from 4 to 4.5 sessions a week.
 
@jess1 I'm in this position right now... 6 days a week is tough to be consistent with, but I love the pump I get with a PPL workout. Have been struggling with whether I should blend my two PP days a bit more for more of an Upper-Lower set up if all I can really bank on is averaging 4-ish days a week.

Are you still doing PPL 4-4.5 days a week, or have you moved on to something else?
 
@oncemore I’m still doing PPL as I like the flexibility. I’m 40 and work long hours and it’s easy to fit in around my life and adjust when I need more recovery.

Very few people actually manage to train six days a week for a long time, train hard and achieve what I would consider good results. I’m sure it happens, but it’s normally young beginners who think doing more means faster progress and can recover from a lot. It becomes much harder when you’re stronger and older. My joints wouldn’t handle it now.

People often focus on doing more and not actually getting better.
 
@jess1 I understand the joints & recovery thing. I used to make fun of “older” guys but now I’m an “older” guy and I totally get it. Can I fit in more sets or sessions? Sure, but I might not be able to get up tomorrow morning and chase my kids. 😂
 
@oncemore I do what I call rolling ppl 6 days. I just keep going until I feel I need a day off or I'm too busy one day.
Then I just pick it up the day after and carry on.

I think that's more beneficial than skipping body parts just because you were unable to train one particular day.
 
@kayheartsong That's more or less how I've been approaching it, but I end up averaging just under 4 days a week. Can't decide if I should shorten my workouts to make it easier to be more frequent, or lean into the current frequency and just do a little more work (combine the more essential push/pull exercises) on my workdays.
 
@oncemore Mine are quite short. 2 exercises for chest, 2 for shoulders, 1 for triceps. That's my push day.
Other days fairly similar. I've always made progress that way.
Don't think I've got a long workout in me anymore haha.
 
@kayheartsong Yeah, I think I answered my question shortly after my last response. I think a lot of my reduced frequency is due to 75+ minute workouts being too taxing and time-consuming. Just don't always have that in me.

Have been dropping a few exercises from sessions to get closer to 15 sets per workout the last few days and finding that I quite like that amount of volume, and should be able to increase my frequency some.
 
@oncemore Im in this exact position too. I can guarantee 4 days. I think I’d struggle to fit enough volume into 4 sessions without training for 1.5 hours or ending up with junk volume if I kept it at 1 hour.
 
@giamfreeg Yeah, its a tough balance. I've decided to try keeping my sessions to around 15 sets, hopefully less than an hour, and hope that reducing volume from 25± sets per session will make it easy enough for me to average 5-ish days a week.
 
@jess1 This is my thinking. I've also never understood the concept that's naturals need to train more often with more frequency than non natties which is pushed around a lot here, we need more recovery not less lol. Gains are so slow for me now anyways jumping to 5-6 days would just outweigh any positives.
 
@darksoul999 Highly recommend these 2 videos:

"Why You Should Train MORE Than The Pros"


tl:dr
  • pros tend to have more fast twitch fiber which needs less stimulation
  • pros tend to be way stronger and have way more muscle which results in longer recovery periods
  • drugs don't make that much of a difference, especially when pros get stronger and get more muscular, see above
  • on average, pros train less than they actually say they do
  • it's usually frequency that pros can't handle that much, including joints hurting
Also: frequency, volume, intensity and intensivness need to be regulated, meaning that if you trained your chest for 10 sets a week now, and you up frequency 2x, you'd start with still 10 sets per week which results in 5 sets per session, and leaving intensity and intensiveness where they are.

edit: oh, and obviously it differs from person to person and muscle to muscle, see video below as well

" Best Bodybuilding Split For Growing Muscle"


tl:dr
  • comparison between PPL, Upper-Lower, Whole Body
 
@freedominjesusname A lot of this shit is bs. Two of the strongest biggest dudes (not natty) I met, and a lot of the old strong old school lifters told me before that nattys should only be working a muscle group once per week, albeit you are working it hard that session, think mentzer or Yates style to failure. I train bjj a couple of times too, and sometimes it'll be 10 to 12 days before a muscle group gets hit again, and this timing is perfect for gains and recovery I've always found. That whole needing more frequency as a natty thing is total bs lol
 
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