Training twice a day for maximum gains and leanness‏…

Hi,

This newsletter is for the overly ambitious reader (so all of you)but especially my personal training clients in NYC ; have you thought about training twice a day?

First of all, training twice a day requires some basic foundations in order to be successful:

  • You should have trained properly for at least the last two years
  • Not have a physically demanding job (most of the western world can easily check this box)
  • Have a good understanding of how to construct a proper diet
  • Be able to sufficiently rest and recover in-between sessions (most NYers can stop reading now).

Let’s move on and assume that you have checked all of those boxes. How do you train most effectively when training twice a day? Again, there are several avenues:

  1. The old school approach – cardio in the morning, weights at night. This method works reasonably well as most peoples’ hormonal levels are better at night, hence they can lift heavier weights – plus, there are more hot chicks to impress!
  2. Cutting your workout in two – instead of training chest and back, you would train chest in the morning and back at night. This works ok, especially for very strong lifters as otherwise the workouts tend to get too long, (Tunc – are you reading this?) 🙂
  3. Training the same muscle twice a day: this is actually the best way to train twice a day – (Maik, have you lost it??? Training the same muscle twice a day goes against any broscience!).
True, but here is how to do it:

Keep the morning workout short (about 20 minutes), and use 30-40% of your regular lifts and perform 10 sets of 4.

Let’s assume it is chest and back day, we’ll assume that your bench and row weights would be around 310lbs.

In the morning you would do:

10×4 bench 135lbs fast
8×4 rows 135lbs fast

Leave the gym, return 6 – 8 hours later and perform your regular hypertrophy workout. The short morning workout will prime your CNS for maximum output later in the day.

While this is a good way to train, I would not recommend doing it for longer than two to three weeks unless you have nothing else to do but lift; (in which case you should see someone about that!).

Training twice a day is a great way to change your physique but it does get stressful fast. Supplements that help are; ZMA at night, theanine before the workout, if you use any type of caffeine and glucosamine for the joints. Also, increase your calorie intake by 10 – 15% if you are trying to build muscle.

All for now!

Maik

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