Sometimes during your life, training a lot might not be a possibility. This can be due to life circumstances, motivation, or even an inability to train as much as you want. As someone who has dedicated a long time to grow stronger, training less can be scary. You might ask yourself questions such as will I get weaker? Will I lose all my gains?
In this article, we will try to explore what the minimal dose of training is. That is how little you can train, to maintain strength and maybe even gain strength.
Training more isn’t always better
In recent years a lot of focus has been on training volume. One of the reasons for this is Brad Schoenfeld’s excellent research on training volume. We know by now that there is a dose-response between total volume and gains. This easily leads to the conclusion that more is always better. Which, can easily lead to the idea that training less will also lead to worse results.
Sometimes this is the case, and more training will lead to more results. But it is not as one-sided as some might believe. Sometimes less training can lead to better gains, and other times life makes more training impossible.
Often when talking about gaining strength with low-volume training we look to novices. Programs such as the starting strength novice linear progression (SSNLP) take a minimal approach to training. You do as little as one set of deadlifts a week on such a program. This low amount of volume usually comes at the cost of high intensity. In general, I don't think such a low-volume, high-intensity approach is appropriate for most people, the majority of the time. However, At times such programming can be very effective.
My case here is that more isn't always better. Better is better. Usually, a specific amount of volume is appropriate for specific periods of a lifter's career. Sometimes that is a lot of volume, and other times it is less volume
We also know that due to the repeated bout effect we adapt to what we do. Driving high volumes of training for long periods, might thus also make us more resistant to adapting to such high volumes.
Periods of lower-volume training might thus increase our sensitivity to training stimuli.
How little can you train and still get stronger?
Sometimes the interesting question is, how little can I do and still get better? There are many reasons why this question could be relevant. Sometimes we might not have as much time to train, we might actually need less training to get better, and so on. It can be scary to make the jump to less training because we inherently think that more work equals more results.
However, sometimes we need to do less training. An example is peaking for a competition where the total training volume is very low, but the intensity is very high.
In these cases, it would be very assuring to know that we aren't doing something too extreme and radical. That will lead to bad results.
In a meta-analysis from 2020 researchers found that performing as little as a single set of 6-12 repetitions to failure, 2-3 times a week, was enough to increase strength in resistance-trained men. During the 8-12 weeks the study lasted, they increased squat strength by 8.51 kg-26.46 kg and bench press strength by 0.68 kg-15.83 kg.
What one should take away from this isn't that maxing out 2-3 times a week will make you stronger. As they noted these results weren't optimal and far from all participants made PR during the training.
What is significant, however, is how little training can be done, while still making progress. This data can be useful if you either need to resensitize from training, don't have enough time to train or even want to try an approach to training with less volume.
When can training less be beneficial?
In training, there are four different types of responses one can have to a program.
- Making gains and feeling recovered
- Not making gains and feeling recovered
- Making gains and feeling beat up
- Not making gains and feeling beat up
All these states should be handled in different ways.
First, let's define what we mean by not making gains. Performance can be up or down, randomly from week to week. A single bad week doesn't have to mean that we aren't making progress.
On the other hand, if we aren’t able to add weight to the bar for at least 3-4 consecutive weeks. Something probably has to change.
Making gains and feeling recovered
The first one is obvious. If you are feeling recovered and are making gains, great! Don't change anything! Just ride the wave. This is of course the best place to be, and this is where we would probably strive to be in training most of the time.
Not making gains and feeling recovered
Feeling recovered but not making gains is also not so bad a place to be. At this point, there are a few things you could do.
- Increase training volume
The reason why we aren't making gains could be that we simply aren't training enough. A remedy to this could be to train more. This, however, is a somewhat dangerous lever to pull since it can be hard to pull back again.
- Change exercises or intensity
Another that one should probably try first is to change exercise selection or intensity. Maybe what you are currently doing isn't working simply because you are doing something you don't respond well to.
The solution here is to find exercises, intensities, and even rep ranges that are better at granting the response we are looking for.
Making gains and feeling beat up
It all becomes a bit harder when we are making good progress, but at the same time we feel beat up, due to fatigue from training. At this point, one has to make a choice. How long are you willing to stay in this fatigued state and make gains?
Short-term changing nothing is probably fine. But over the long term one probably have to reduce training volume or risk injury or burnout.
Not making gains and feeling beat up
Sometimes we find ourselves in the worst possible place to be. We feel beat up by training, yet we don't seem to make any progress. There could be many reasons for this. Maybe work stress or lack of sleep makes you tolerate less training volume, or maybe you simply planned too much training from the start.
The first goal in such a state should be to get out of it. This means taking a deload to drop fatigue and recalibrate things.
We usually feel beat up from training due to the sheer amount of training volume we are doing. So to fix this state, we have to pull back. This means reducing training volume and/or reducing training intensity.
In addition, the training we are doing might not always be constructive to our goals. So we might also have to change the type of training to something we respond better to.
About Rasmus Skriver
Powerlifter and coach with more than 7 years in the game.