Beginner Bodybuilding: How Often to Train

Training the whole body three days a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) is ideal for the beginner. This allows the beginner nearly 48 hours of rest between workouts and gives the beginner an additional two days of rest over weekends.

Do 1 - 2 exercises of two sets of ten reps per body part. The beginner may feel like doing more, but don't. The beginner should do this type of training for about a month before doing more exercises. This will allow the body proper stimulation for growth without overtaxing its ability to recuperate.

As the beginner progresses, he may decide to do more advanced training, such as working specific body parts in some workouts, with whole body sessions only two times a week. Examples of such training include the double split, the push pull system, four on/one off and three on/one off.

Your decision to get into new types of training depends on how fast your body adapts to each new level of training and your individual goals. The beginner may be ready to go beyond the three day a week workout only after one month of training. Another beginner may decide that three day a week training is ideal for his or her lifestyle and goals.

Sets and reps are important factors to your bodybuilding success. A good set is made up of good reps and a good workout is made up of both. At this point in your training, doing more than two sets of 10 reps per body part greatly increases your chance of overtraining (doing too much work and getting inadequate rest, leading to diminished gains). Ten reps provide optimal muscle stimulation without putting your body into a state of over or under training.

As your body improves in strength and condition, you may decide to use supersets, giant sets, pyramid training, staggered sets, high/moderate/low rep training, rest pause, volume training, speed training and many other advanced techniques, as a way of increasing the intensity of your workouts for maximum growth.