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The Secrets Behind Training Twice a Day: Part I
Training twice a day is either 2 Good 2 Be True or the most important training secret you'll ever use!
by Charles Poliquin
http://www.charlespoliquin.com
I'll tell you right up front: One of the best ways to increase gains in strength or muscle mass rapidly is to train twice a day. This concept is not one I invented but in fact has been used by athletes from a variety of sports for many decades.
In football, one of the traditions during the preseason is to engage in a period where the athletes train twice a day in what is known as "two-a-days." Part of the rationale for doing so much work in a single day is to learn as many new skills and plays as possible, but it also serves as a message to players that it's time to get serious about the game. Other sports also make use of the concept of multiple workouts, but for other reasons.
Distance runners, for example, often require a large volume of training that is difficult to perform all at once and at a high level. Rather than running 10 miles straight, they might do a morning "warm-up" run of three miles, then a primary workout of seven miles later in the day. Splitting up their training as such serves to prevent them from getting lazy - if they go for a long period without a run, they start thinking twice about whether this type of commitment is worth the investment in time and energy.
In weightlifting, the famous Bulgarian weightlifting coach Ivan Abadzhiev popularized the concept that testosterone levels could only remain at their highest levels for about 30-45 minutes. Thus, to keep his athletes using the heaviest weights possible, Abadzhiev's workouts only lasted about 45 minutes. However, to obtain sufficient volume of training to continually make progress at the highest levels of the sport, Abadzhiev and other Bulgarian coaches found that their athletes needed to train at least twice a day - and in fact often as many as five times a day.
There are numerous reasons that explain why training twice a day is the shortcut to gains. From a physical perspective, anabolism is maximized. Because testosterone and cortisol both come from the same raw material (pregnenolone), you want to avoid long workouts that deplete the pregnenolone and interfere with testosterone production.
From a psychological perspective, training twice a day allows for greater concentration during workouts. No matter how driven you are, excessively long workouts affect your mind. Eventually you will not look forward to your workouts, and your desire to train hard will be affected.
Secrets of Twice-a-Day Training
I am firmly convinced that athletes can get more out of their training if they have the luxury of training twice a day. Unfortunately, many of us have career and family commitments that prevent us from participating in such an extensive training schedule. But if you do have the time to train twice a day, I'd like to share with you the methods that work the best.
First, when adding an additional workout it's important to keep both training sessions short. Excluding warm-up time, your workouts should initially be no more than 40 minutes in length - training longer than that would be counterproductive. Eventually, as your body's recovery ability increases, you can increase your workout time to 60 minutes, but no more.
Next, the training must be sequenced properly. I've found the best results are achieved when the same bodypart is trained twice on the same day. There are several options to accomplish this, such as the following sequence:
Option A: Hypertrophy
AM: Compound exercises
PM: Isolation exercises
If you are working the pectorals, for example, the morning session could consist of incline presses and dips, and the evening session would be devoted to isolation exercises such as dumbbell flyes and various cable exercises.
Powerlifters can also use a similar approach when they desire to move up a weight class post-competition, as follows:
Option B: Hypertrophy
AM: 4-6 reps
PM: 12-20 reps
From experience, I have found that working heavy in the morning and higher reps at night works quite well; for example, performing sets of 4-6 reps in the morning and sets of 12-15 at night.
Option C: Hypertrophy/Strength
AM: Low Reps, Fast Tempo
PM: Low Reps, Slow Tempo
You could also do the same reps bracket during both workouts but use a different tempo; for example, performing 4-6 reps on a 20X0 tempo in the morning and 4-6 reps on a 4210 tempo at night. The explosive work in the morning tends to facilitate the evening workout; thus you can use greater loads than normal in the evening. The nature of the exercise can take care of that. One practical way to apply this system would be to perform power cleans in the morning and deadlifts with chains at night. Or, for an athlete whose primarily goal is to improve their jumping ability, the sequence would be plyometrics in the morning and squats in the evening.
Option D: Rapid Strength Gains
AM: Relative Strength Methods
PM: Functional Hypertrophy Methods
If you are more interested in strength development, your morning workouts should be in the 1-3 rep range; whereas your evening workouts would max out at 8 reps.
Option E: Rapid Strength Gains
AM: Relative Strength Training
PM: Eccentric-Only Training
I really like this method, in which you train heavy in the morning and then perform eccentric-only training in the evening. For example, heavy front squats for 6 sets of 2-3 reps on a 5010 tempo in the morning, and eccentric back squats of 7 sets of 1 rep on a 10:0:1 tempo at night. For these squats, I recommend using the eccentric hooks known as "Power Recruits" (contact Bob Kowalski at 814-378-7108 ).
Option F: Olympic Weightlifting or Powerlifting
AM: Competitive lift or derivative
PM: Assistance work
For an Olympic lifter it could be snatches in the morning and front squats in the evening. For a powerlifter, it could be deadlifts in the morning and reverse hypers at night.
Regarding exercise selection for both workouts, you may want to do the same ones if strength is your primary goal, or change them completely if hypertrophy is your main concern. Thus, weightlifters would do back
squats twice a day, while a bodybuilder may perform bench presses in the morning and incline dumbbell presses in the afternoon. Or you could even just do a slight variation; for example, back squats, heels flat, in the morning, and backs squats, heels elevated, at night.
Putting Time on Your Side
You have to be wise when introducing twice-a-day training in that the volume should be increased gradually. I have developed the following great formula to accomplish this. (Note that when I say workout, it is a workout for a given body part, such as legs.)
Workout
Morning session
Evening session
1
40 to 50 minutes
20 minutes
2
50 to 60 minutes
20 to 30 minutes
3
40 minutes
none
4
50 to 60 minutes
25 to 35 minutes
5
50 to 60 minutes
30 to 40 minutes
6
40 minutes
none
7
50 to 60 minutes
40 to 50 minutes
8
50 to 60 minutes
40 minutes
9
50 to 60 minutes
none
Thoughts guys.
Training twice a day is either 2 Good 2 Be True or the most important training secret you'll ever use!
by Charles Poliquin
http://www.charlespoliquin.com
I'll tell you right up front: One of the best ways to increase gains in strength or muscle mass rapidly is to train twice a day. This concept is not one I invented but in fact has been used by athletes from a variety of sports for many decades.
In football, one of the traditions during the preseason is to engage in a period where the athletes train twice a day in what is known as "two-a-days." Part of the rationale for doing so much work in a single day is to learn as many new skills and plays as possible, but it also serves as a message to players that it's time to get serious about the game. Other sports also make use of the concept of multiple workouts, but for other reasons.
Distance runners, for example, often require a large volume of training that is difficult to perform all at once and at a high level. Rather than running 10 miles straight, they might do a morning "warm-up" run of three miles, then a primary workout of seven miles later in the day. Splitting up their training as such serves to prevent them from getting lazy - if they go for a long period without a run, they start thinking twice about whether this type of commitment is worth the investment in time and energy.
In weightlifting, the famous Bulgarian weightlifting coach Ivan Abadzhiev popularized the concept that testosterone levels could only remain at their highest levels for about 30-45 minutes. Thus, to keep his athletes using the heaviest weights possible, Abadzhiev's workouts only lasted about 45 minutes. However, to obtain sufficient volume of training to continually make progress at the highest levels of the sport, Abadzhiev and other Bulgarian coaches found that their athletes needed to train at least twice a day - and in fact often as many as five times a day.
There are numerous reasons that explain why training twice a day is the shortcut to gains. From a physical perspective, anabolism is maximized. Because testosterone and cortisol both come from the same raw material (pregnenolone), you want to avoid long workouts that deplete the pregnenolone and interfere with testosterone production.
From a psychological perspective, training twice a day allows for greater concentration during workouts. No matter how driven you are, excessively long workouts affect your mind. Eventually you will not look forward to your workouts, and your desire to train hard will be affected.
Secrets of Twice-a-Day Training
I am firmly convinced that athletes can get more out of their training if they have the luxury of training twice a day. Unfortunately, many of us have career and family commitments that prevent us from participating in such an extensive training schedule. But if you do have the time to train twice a day, I'd like to share with you the methods that work the best.
First, when adding an additional workout it's important to keep both training sessions short. Excluding warm-up time, your workouts should initially be no more than 40 minutes in length - training longer than that would be counterproductive. Eventually, as your body's recovery ability increases, you can increase your workout time to 60 minutes, but no more.
Next, the training must be sequenced properly. I've found the best results are achieved when the same bodypart is trained twice on the same day. There are several options to accomplish this, such as the following sequence:
Option A: Hypertrophy
AM: Compound exercises
PM: Isolation exercises
If you are working the pectorals, for example, the morning session could consist of incline presses and dips, and the evening session would be devoted to isolation exercises such as dumbbell flyes and various cable exercises.
Powerlifters can also use a similar approach when they desire to move up a weight class post-competition, as follows:
Option B: Hypertrophy
AM: 4-6 reps
PM: 12-20 reps
From experience, I have found that working heavy in the morning and higher reps at night works quite well; for example, performing sets of 4-6 reps in the morning and sets of 12-15 at night.
Option C: Hypertrophy/Strength
AM: Low Reps, Fast Tempo
PM: Low Reps, Slow Tempo
You could also do the same reps bracket during both workouts but use a different tempo; for example, performing 4-6 reps on a 20X0 tempo in the morning and 4-6 reps on a 4210 tempo at night. The explosive work in the morning tends to facilitate the evening workout; thus you can use greater loads than normal in the evening. The nature of the exercise can take care of that. One practical way to apply this system would be to perform power cleans in the morning and deadlifts with chains at night. Or, for an athlete whose primarily goal is to improve their jumping ability, the sequence would be plyometrics in the morning and squats in the evening.
Option D: Rapid Strength Gains
AM: Relative Strength Methods
PM: Functional Hypertrophy Methods
If you are more interested in strength development, your morning workouts should be in the 1-3 rep range; whereas your evening workouts would max out at 8 reps.
Option E: Rapid Strength Gains
AM: Relative Strength Training
PM: Eccentric-Only Training
I really like this method, in which you train heavy in the morning and then perform eccentric-only training in the evening. For example, heavy front squats for 6 sets of 2-3 reps on a 5010 tempo in the morning, and eccentric back squats of 7 sets of 1 rep on a 10:0:1 tempo at night. For these squats, I recommend using the eccentric hooks known as "Power Recruits" (contact Bob Kowalski at 814-378-7108 ).
Option F: Olympic Weightlifting or Powerlifting
AM: Competitive lift or derivative
PM: Assistance work
For an Olympic lifter it could be snatches in the morning and front squats in the evening. For a powerlifter, it could be deadlifts in the morning and reverse hypers at night.
Regarding exercise selection for both workouts, you may want to do the same ones if strength is your primary goal, or change them completely if hypertrophy is your main concern. Thus, weightlifters would do back
squats twice a day, while a bodybuilder may perform bench presses in the morning and incline dumbbell presses in the afternoon. Or you could even just do a slight variation; for example, back squats, heels flat, in the morning, and backs squats, heels elevated, at night.
Putting Time on Your Side
You have to be wise when introducing twice-a-day training in that the volume should be increased gradually. I have developed the following great formula to accomplish this. (Note that when I say workout, it is a workout for a given body part, such as legs.)
Workout
Morning session
Evening session
1
40 to 50 minutes
20 minutes
2
50 to 60 minutes
20 to 30 minutes
3
40 minutes
none
4
50 to 60 minutes
25 to 35 minutes
5
50 to 60 minutes
30 to 40 minutes
6
40 minutes
none
7
50 to 60 minutes
40 to 50 minutes
8
50 to 60 minutes
40 minutes
9
50 to 60 minutes
none
Thoughts guys.
