A few months back a reader & fan pointed me to a thread on Twitter, wherein one of those fitness experts with lots of followers brought out his dumb opinion on a “stupid question”.
The question was to the effect of, “I train pullups every day and aim to hit a total of 50 reps. Is this a good idea?”
Here’s my rule of thumb: if you have to ask if it’s a good idea, you can safely default to “No”.
For sure don’t ask this of a clout-chaser. No good can come of that.
Anyway, Mr. Expert — you know he’s an expert because there’s a lot of followers, and being popular means you’re effective, see? — went on to savage frequent training, calling it stupid, risky, destructive, and all the other vapid, tedious myths I ever heard while carrying on the Squat Every Day project.
Seen it, heard it, been there. Fitness advice is all fashion trends.
But there is one stupid thing in the question.
It has nothing to do with daily training of pull-ups, or any other movement.
Higher frequency in and of itself has been shown to help with, among other things, joint pains, developing skill, building strength, and even (when used properly) stimulating muscle hyper-trophy. Training often can indeed get you jakt and/or swole.
Our questioner’s problem is not the daily frequency. It’s his bone-headed determination to hit 50 reps nigh upon the Day of Judgment itself.
The secret of high-frequency weight training lies the trade-off with intensity and volume.
You can go heavy, and you can hit high volumes, but you won’t do either one of them often, and only when two blood-moons align will you do both.
The point of daily training is practice, not obliteration. When you’re feeling up to a new rep-max, or you have the urging to hit 50 rep target, by all means do so.
But if you aren’t, you aren’t — and you’d be foolish to push it.
Allow it, don’t push it.
That’s all for today.
Matt Perryman