4 Areas of Training

When it comes to areas of training there is not one superior method that burns the most body fat or builds the most muscle. However… what is the BEST for you is what you’re NOT doing. Your body will adapt to everything you throw at it, so mixing things up every 6/8 weeks is a great way to keep progressing.

1. Frequency. How often you train. As a general rule as frequency increases, duration actually decreases. For example, you could train 3 times a week for 1 hour at a time or 5 times a week for just 30 minutes. The difference between the 2 is more than you would think, 5 times a week is great for someone who has limited time, but is also great for anyone new or getting back into the gym. The reason for this is that this allows you practise a movement more often, so instead of squatting 3 times a week you can squat 4/5 times, which will improve your form and reduce your likelihood of injury.

2. Intensity. How hard you train. Are you going into the gym and walking on a treadmill or sat on a bike for up to an hour (low intensity) or are you beasting yourself for 30 minutes doing some HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training)? Both have their benefits. It would be hard to maintain such a high intensity for an hour, maybe not as a one off, but not as a regular occurrence.

3. Duration. How long you train. This links heavily to intensity, if you train for 90 minutes your intensity would have to be much lower than if you just trained for 30 minutes. This also crosses over with frequency, training for 90 minutes you may only want to do 3 times a week, whereas if you are just doing 30 minutes you could do that 5 times a week.

4. Volume. How many sets and reps. Are you doing 3 set of 10 reps, 2 sets of 15 reps or maybe 5x5 – These all have roughly the same amount of total reps (volume) but would all require a different intensity, which in this case would be weight used.