I am convinced that one can grow more if they can afford the luxury of
training twice a day. However most of us have career and family
committments that prevent us to have such an extensive training schedule.
Working out twice a day can be very effective providing that you pay respect
the 5 following principles:
a) you keep the workouts short. Excluding warm-up time, your workouts should
be no more than 40 minutes in length. Training longer than that would be
counter-productive.
b) sequence the training properly. In my opinion, the same bodypart should
be trained twice the same day. There is a variety of options at that.
Option A Morning-Heavy Evening-Light
From experience I have found that working heavy in the morning and higher
reps at night works quite well. For example doing sets of 4-6 reps in the
morning, and sets of 12-15 at night.
Option B Morning Low Reps-Fast Tempo; Evening Low Reps-Slow Tempo
You could do also the same reps bracket during both workouts but use a
different tempo. For example doing 4-6 reps on 30X tempo in the morning, and
5-7 reps on 505 tempo at night.
Option C Morning Heavy; Evening Eccentric Only Training
Another one I like is training heavy in the morning and doing eccentric only
training at night. For example, heavy front squats 6 x 2-3 on a 501 tempo
in the morning; eccentric back squats of 7 x 1 on a 10:0:1 tempo at night. I
use the eccentric hooks known as Power Recruits in that case. Contact Bob
Kowalski at (814) 378-7108
Regarding exercise selection for both workout, you may want to do the same
ones if strength is your main concern, or change them if hypertrophy is your
main concern. For example, weightlifters will do back squats twice a day,
while a bodybuilder may do bench presses in the morning and incline dumbbell
presses in the afternoon.
c) you pay attention to post-workout nutrition: In that case, liquid
nutrition is best. For a 200 lbs bodybuilders that would be a shake
containing 60 grams of protein and up to 200 grams of carbs after every
workout. When training twice a day, I suggest you take a very broad based
anti-oxydant formula. If you can afford it, taking a phosphatidyl serine
supplement (800mg) after the second workout of the day is also a good idea
to help you have a greater testosterone/cortisol ratio.
d) You must leave 4-6 hours between workouts. This time spread is critical.
If you use a shorter one, you will be too fatigued, and a longer one you
will use the nervous system activation effect of the morning workout.
e) for every two weeks of twice a day, take a week of once a day. this will
insure that you will not overtrain. It has been shown that training twice a
day for short periods may depress temporarily testosterone. However, the
testosterone will shoot right back up if you cut back to once a day training
for a week.