If you train a muscle three times a week instead of once, and you end up doing more total work, you’ll get stronger and bigger muscles—better than if you kept the same total work.

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Pro

54

Against

Evidence from Studies

Supporting (0)

0

Community contributions welcome

No supporting evidence found

Contradicting (1)

54

Community contributions welcome

54

Effect of different training frequencies on maximal strength performance and muscle hypertrophy in trained individuals—a within-subject design

Randomized Controlled Trial

Human

2022

The study found that doing leg workouts three times a week didn’t make people stronger or build more muscle than once a week — unless they did more total work. So it’s not the frequency that helps, it’s doing more reps and sets.

Gold Standard Evidence Needed

According to GRADE and EBM methodology, here is what ideal scientific evidence would look like to definitively prove or disprove this specific claim, ordered from strongest to weakest evidence.

Source Study

Effect of different training frequencies on maximal strength performance and muscle hypertrophy in trained individuals—a within-subject design

Score: 54

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0276154

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