Is a 3 time per week PPL enough to build and maintain muscle?

[onehumbleservant]

What’s optimal for a 50ish year old male? The PPL would be regimented and at a challenging level.

 

[sanj79]

@onehumbleservant It all kinda depends. For the most part training a muscle group once a week is enough to make gains BUT the amount of intensity plays a key factor in that too. If you’re taking each set to within 2-3 reps short of failure and aren’t taking really long rests between sets you should be fine. Another work schedule you may want to look at is Upper/Lower Upper Body x2 week and Lower Body 2x week.

 

[anne_l]

@onehumbleservant Firstly, volumes require for hypertrophy (growth) and maintenance are vastly different. Secondly, it is highly dependent on your training age. Are you a beginner? Then yes you can easily make gains on 3 days per week.

 

[onehumbleservant]

@anne_l Not a beginner. Not trying to be a body builder either. Just want to keep building and maintaining muscle and stay in pretty good shape.

 

[anne_l]

@onehumbleservant Well do you want to build or maintain? Because they require different program volumes.

 

[onehumbleservant]

@anne_l Build then

 

[anne_l]

@onehumbleservant You can build muscle on a 3 day a week plan as long as you are getting sufficient volume, it will just be slower than if you were hitting each muscle group twice a week. If you notice your progress is stalling, add a set or two for that muscle group. Keep adding weight and/or reps so that you are finishing each set with 0-3 RIR. Incorporating mostly compound lifts will also help. I wouldn’t go crazy with your calorie surplus, aim to gain 1-2lbs a month.

 

[gracenprayers]

@anne_l Agree with you

Hitting each muscle group 2x/week will get you more gains than 1x.

Also, @onehumbleservant don’t forget to increase your protein intake.

 

[saycomasry]

@onehumbleservant I go by fatigue and muscle soreness. It usually takes me 3-4 days to recover now: I’m 64. It’s been working great for me.

 

[emosoundlogic]

@onehumbleservant For me, 4x is better. 5 times best.

 

[gracenprayers]

@onehumbleservant Just watched a great video on this topic from Dr. Mike Israetel. Bottom line, try to work each muscle group 2x/week for biggest impact.

 

[fayzer]

@onehumbleservant If you are regulated to 3 workouts a week a good compromise that has worked for me is to devise a 2 way split (for me it was upper body - lower body/core) and alternate them over your 3 day schedule. Example: Mon - WO #1, Wed - WO #2, Fri - WO #1. The next week it's 2-1-2. What this does is train each body part three times every 2 weeks rather then just once a week. Obviously it will limit the volume per body part compared to doing PPL but you are getting older and this will help you from getting injured. Now that I'm retired and have the time and freedom to do so I just alternate WO #1 - cardio - WO #2 - cardio and repeat which has me training each body part twice in 8 days with plenty of cardio. Give it a try, you got nothing to lose. If you don't like it just try something else.